The Once and the Future Emiya
by vmdahaka
Summary: Counter Guardian Emiya is freed from the duties and shackles of a guardian by the Youkai of Boundaries, Yukari Yakumo. He is now incarnated anew in Arthurian-era Britain, where he is plunged into a deadly game run by all-powerful beings. Will he be able to take up the mantle of King Arthur and save Britain, or will he die trying?
1. Chapter 1

**I do not own anything and everything belongs to their respective owners.**

**The Once and the Future Emiya**

Counter Guardian Emiya came back to his world bloodied, battered and most importantly forlorn after his latest purge he had done under orders of Alaya, collective unconsciousness of humanity. The things it forces him to do are slowly making his soul crumble apart and drive him to the point of insanity; even now he doesn't dare to count the numbers of people he had killed and the numbers of people that he had failed to save, in fear of going mad.

The countless swords in the distance and ever turning gears over the horizon only served to make his figure smaller and more pitiful. He had enough of his role as a 'cleaner' for a long time; however there was nothing he could do about it no matter what he tried. Since he had made a contract he doomed himself to this and had no way of reversing it. His last desperate attempt was to bet on being summoned into the Fifth Holy Grail War and to kill his younger self resulting in a paradox that would prevent him from becoming a Counter Guardian. He of course failed, _multiple times_ and even then he deep down doubted that it would have freed him from this prison, due to the laws of the kaleidoscope and the way Alaya recruits her soldiers.

As he was pondering on his miserable situation he felt a tug in his head, signalling that he is being summoned by Alaya, for another purge no doubt. He wondered how many people will die by his blades this time and how many people he will have to watch suffer, as he stood up. He was almost about to answer the summons when something strange happened.

There was a _gap_ right in front of him.

Yes, a _gap_.

It was just there like an error in the world, it was big enough for a human being to pass through, but what disturbed Emiya were the contents of the gap, hundreds upon hundreds of demonic eyes gazing right at him in the endless seeping darkness that seemed to be coming from the cursed tear in the world. He could _feel_ his sanity dropping just by staring at it, and he could hear dark promises echo from it.

**"Come Counter Guardian, and I shall free you from your shackles."**

**"I shall grant you a new chance at life, the life you always dreamed of, the life of a hero."**

**"Not even Alaya has hold over me, if you agree to come with me, I will guarantee that your contract will be nullified."**

The overly sweet feminine voice was trying to tempt Emiya into making another contract and he knew it. It sounded too good to be true, so there was most likely some sort of catch who knows maybe he would just switch his leash to a new master or maybe he would end up as some guinea pig for Zelretch. Whatever the case it's not like he could just figure out whatever penalty this offer has nor did he have the leisure to do so. The tugging in his head increased signalling that Alaya was getting impatient, no doubt she would be forcing his summon if he waited any longer.

He had to decide now, enter the unknown and leave things to fate, or keep being a cleaner of humanity and continue the atrocities. This was probably his only chance, the chance that he had been waiting for so long, so the answer was already obvious to him.

Counter Guardian Emiya, formerly known as Emiya Shirou stepped into the darkness and forever disappeared from Alaya's influence.

The darkness swallowed him, the pressure was insane, it felt as if Hercules was trying to squash the life out of him, the pain became greater and greater until he started to lose consciousness, before fully fading away he heard the voice for a final time.

**"Fufu, you choose well Emiya Shirou, you will live a life like no other!"**

…..

…..

'Where am I?' Asked Emiya as his consciousness was returning. He was still in the blackness but he no longer felt any pain, however he quickly became alarmed once more when he noticed that there was _nothing_ here. Everywhere he looked was blackness, seemingly limitless darkness, he looked below at his feet and here was nothing there, he seemed to be just floating in space.

Something broke the deafening silence inside the gap, slippery sounds.

He turned to the source and noticed that the same eyes from before have reappeared and resumed looking at him. The eyes seemed to be indicating that he should go on that path, or maybe he was just going crazy, he didn't know. With nothing else to do he just obliged and went on the path, after several minutes of walking he began to notice a faint light in the distance, as if it was some beacon of hope.

He started running.

And sure he soon reached the exit, he quickly sprinted out of this hellish space as fast as he could, upon exiting, his eyes came across something so brilliant and radiant that it almost drove him mad.

It was a _sword_.

No, not just any sword, this was a sword that he personally knew and recognized, a noble phantasm that he had seen in his dreams before and beloved to his loyal Servant.

It was the Golden Sword, Caliburn, the very sword King Arthur pulled out from the stone and signalled his rise to kingship, it radiated the concept of victory; no one who wields it would lose a battle.

He felt as if he were in a daze.

_**He must get that sword**_

_**No matter what**_

_**He rushed to it, he noticed that it was embedded in a stone, but didn't care for that at the moment**_

_**Someone was blocking him**_

_**Irrelevant**_

_**The person was pushed out of the way**_

_**He violently grabbed hold of the blade and tried to pull it out, but seemed to be having a hard time in doing so**_

'_**No problem, I just need to use reinforcement' he thought as he flooded his circuits with prana**_

_**The Sword was pulled out from its resting space and light filled the area.**_

Only then did Emiya notice where he was, and more importantly what kind of situation he was in.

He gazed upon the crowd of what would appear to be 'medieval' nobles and a cloaked man staring at him in shock.

He further moved his eyes until they came across someone familiar, it was a young-looking Saber who had both the looks of anger and surprise painted across her face. He only just realized who he has pushed out-of-the-way and where he was.

Fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

_**I do not own anything and everything belongs to their respective owners**_

Chapter 2

Her name was Arthuria…

….Arthuria Pendragon, illegitimate child of Uther Pendragon, last great king of Britain.

Uther's child was prophesized to be next rightful ruler of Britain by the wizard, Merlin….

…however when Arthuria was finally born, King Uther had rejected her due to her gender.

A female could never be a King, such was the law.

So the young Arthuria was left in the care of Merlin, who eventually gave her to Sir Ector to be trained as knight.

She was raised as a fine knight along with Sir Ector's son, Kay who she viewed as her brother.

She soon surpassed Kay and aimed to become even stronger, for the goal of eventually becoming the King, since she believed that only a King could save a country from ruin.

Eventually the so told day of the prophecy has arrived, the day where the man who would become King would be decided.

Many nobles and knights expecting that the way the king would be selected would be a simple contest of brute strength, with the last one standing becoming the winner.

However all they found upon arriving was a beautiful golden sword, firmly stuck inside a massive stone.

The wizard Merlin approached them and told them that whoever could pull out this sword, would be the rightful King of Britain.

Many tried to pull out the sacred sword, but all failed; she stepped forward to try pulling it out as well.

Her hands touched the handle and Merlin's _voice_ echoed in her ears.

"Arthuria, you should carefully consider once more before you pull out this sword."

"There is no going back once you do, you will cease being human."

Such words were already wasted as her mind was already made up, she would save Britain by her own hands.

That's when it happened….

Arthuria suddenly felt her body roughly pushed aside by someone when she was about to pull out the sword. She briefly wondered who would defy this ceremony by doing something blatantly rude as she stepped up to look at the culprit, and she was surprised to witness what would appear to be a strange foreigner pull out the sword with all of it's majesty. She focused to take in more of his features, the man was definitely strange, he looked young yet he had a snow white hair that seemed to be an especially strange combination given his tan complexion. His red and black outfit was also strange; she didn't think that she had seen anything like it before, it didn't look like something a knight would wear though. Then she looked at the man face and more importantly his eyes, there was wisdom in them, the same wisdom that he would see in the old man, Merlin's eyes, and the man was probably far more experienced and wise than he looked. There was on more thing she had noticed in the eyes, it was an innate kindness, she was sure that this was a person who would protect the weak and help those in need.

Whoever pulled out the holy sword would be destined to be King; does this mean that this man was chosen by the sword? And more importantly, does this mean that this man is to be the future King, the saviour of Britain? She briefly wondered if she had ever a chance at pulling out the sword.

Merlin on the other hand was positively shitting himself right now; well he would be if he wasn't a more composed man than that. But the current events had infuriated him none the less; someone messed up his careful planning and probably ruined everything. No one was even supposed to be able to pull out the holy sword other than Arthuria, as he was sure to chant a spell to make it sure that the right King would be chosen, and more importantly the person he choose. And sure enough the spell seemed do to its magic seeing the dozens and dozens of nobles and knights who had failed to pull out the sword despite all their strength.

This meant that his magic was working right until the moment the boy mysteriously appeared seemingly out of nowhere and dared to mock him further by knocking his candidate out of the way. Only another mage at his level or higher would able to neutralize his enchantment, he briefly pondered if was the boy, but he dismissed it quickly. While the boy did have some magical energy and it flared up when he pulled the sword out he knew that he didn't and couldn't use any kind of magic that could counter his spells. That means someone else had done it, but who? They must be still nearby if his spell was only just broken.

He quickly looked around and sure enough he found something in the distance, his vision came across a long haired blonde woman dressed in a purple-white dress staring back at him in amusement, holding an expensive looking umbrella**. **_It was a monster_, yes definitely a monster he thought, no human being should be able to emit this much magical energy, her power was beyond his imagination, not even the dragons he had encountered emitted this much _raw power_, and dragons breathed pure prana for god's sake, he was wondering how the people around him weren't choking around from the amount of magic that was filling up the air.

If it was someone this powerful, then they would have no trouble destroying his enhancement. Her smile widened as if she could hear his thoughts, before casually stepping up into a black gap that she had just summoned.

….

Counter Guardian Emiya very much wished he was dead now, mainly because then he would be able to just disappear into spirit form and escape this mess. Indeed he has come to realize that he was very much in fact alive, whoever that sent him here undoubtedly fully incarnated him, which was all the more evident from his rising heartbeat given the situation he was in.

The gears were turning vigorously in his head, trying to figure out a way from this mess. He had just pulled out Caliburn the sword that chooses kings, in front of an audience non the less and prevented Saber from pulling it out. He was most likely deliberately sent to this specific location, so this was most likely the 'catch' of his deal, which probably meant that whoever sent him here wanted him to pull out this sword and probably to also make him the King. He now understood what she meant by 'You will live a life like no other'. He briefly entertained the thought of just rejecting his new role but decided against it, since he doubted that his benefactor would appreciate it much if he didn't play along, and who knows what sufferings a being capable of opposing Alaya would put him through a punishment.

Well that was only one of the reasons why it is better for him to just go with it….

He gazed at Saber who was looking back at him. …..Yes if he accepted, he would most likely spare Saber from her cruel fate and save her. She wouldn't have to wear the heavy burdens of a King, she wouldn't have to through her subordinates not understanding her and resenting her in turn, she wouldn't have to fight his own Son then wallow in sorrow that she had failed Britain and plunge herself into the grail wars. Yes, he was going to prevent all that, for Saber he is going to take this role.

'Heh, I find it ironic how the first thing I'm thinking about is saving someone, some things just never change I guess.'

He grasped the sword and look at the nobles with a determined look.

'I need to make my intentions clear.'

"My name is Shirou Emiya; by the right of this sword I 'am to be the future king of Britain."

"If you would like to see a better future come to this country support me and-"

Suddenly several knights drew their swords and started approaching him.

"Don't be ridiculous who would follow a suspicious foreigner like you! "

'Ah I guess _I do_ must seem like a pretty strange sight in this timeline.'

While he thought this, one of the knights tried to stab him with his sword, Emiya however has skill fully avoided it, and then used the knight's momentum to throw him off his footing and successfully knock him out.

Another 2 knights lunged towards him, trying to take advantage of that that he turned his back towards them when defeating the first knight. To their surprise as if anticipating this, he simply turned around and smashed Caliburn into their swords, breaking them.

2 more left.

A bulkier knight tried to have a go at him with some heavy strikes; he parried a blow with Caliburn, then used his foot to trip off the knight, then pummelled the hilt of his sword into his gut, successfully incapacitating him.

The last one just dropped of his sword signalling his surrender, most likely not wanting to mess with someone who just beat 4 of his companions.

Knights of the old days or not, they were still no match for a former Counter Guardian.

He brandished his sword at the shocked nobles and said with an intimidating voice: "If anyone else wants to challenge my authority, then I will be glad to have a duel with them and show that I' am fit to rule this country!"

'Oh god I hope this works, people in this age solved everything by duelling and fighting, right?'

Then someone clapped and a man with a brown cloak came forward. "Well said Sir Emiya, well said." said while still happily clapping. "I 'am the Wizard Merlin, organizer of this ceremony, if you truly wish to assert your strength then I can organize a tournament where you can do so, but before that could we please have a talk, in private?"

'That silly looking guy is Merlin? He is nothing like I imagined, he looks way too young and lacks the stereotypical white beard, well considering King Arthur was a woman this is hardly strange now.' 'But more importantly I wonder what he wants with me, he probably doesn't like the fact that I pulled out the sword instead of Saber, would he try to eliminate me? That is a definite possibility, though I can't exactly just retreat in this kind of situation.'

Emiya agreed to have a talk with Merlin and followed him to a secluded part of the forest.

…

They had been walking for a while, which has started to bother Emiya, was he really going to try and kill him?

"Hey, how far are you going to take me?"

Merlin turned around to answer him.

"Let's see, this should be good enough, I doubt we were followed."

Merlin eyes suddenly flared golden and a world that shouldn't have been able to be pronounced by human tongue left his mouth "_**Wadk Zsedd**_"

Emiya felt stiff when hearing it, he couldn't move at all and was forced keep looking into those eyes of his. Merlin approached him and violently grabbed his head. 'This was it? Did I really get incarnated only to be killed by Merlin so soon?'

'I can't do anything; my magic resistance is nothing before a great magus from the age of the gods like Merlin.'

Merlin uttered demonic words again "_**Uai Qedd Sydd Ty Yyluswefr**_"

His eyes became completely blank upon hearing those words and had a trance like expression on his face.

"Who are you?" asked Merlin

"Emiya Shirou." He answered him emotionlessly

"Where are you from?"

"Japan"

"Where is this Japan?"

"On the other side of the planet, far to the east."

Merlin arched an eyebrow at this.

"How did you get here from such a far away place?"

"I didn't come to here from Japan, I came here from Alaya."

Alaya…..

'Alaya, the collective consciousness of mankind? No it can't be. Was this man perhaps a counter guardian?'

"Are you a counter guardian?"

"Not anymore."

'I was not aware that the contract could be broken, this is interesting, I should study it some more.'

"How did you break the contract?"

"It wasn't me, someone else helped me, and it was the same person who sent me here."

"Was it a woman?"

"I haven't seen her, but her voice was feminine."

It was most likely that woman he had seen earlier, with that much insane level of magical power she would most likely be able to oppose even Alaya. But why would such a being be here and why would he free a counter guardian only to send him here? His investigation only revealed more and more questions.

"Did you use any magic on the holy sword?"

"No, I only used reinforcement on myself."

This confirmed his suspicions that it wasn't the boy who broke his spell but the woman; he was amazed that she could do it from such a large distance and so effortlessly. This still leaves the question though as to why would she negate the spell, did she want to make this boy the King? Most likely, looks like he was not the only that manipulated events from the shadows. He should probably kill the boy and go on with his original scheme, no he cannot do that, the nobles already seen the foreigner pull out the sword and besides he doubted that woman would leave him alive if he removed her candidate.

"Why do you want to become the King?"

"To…. save Saber." He said with some hesitation this time

"Who is Saber?"

"Her real name is Arthuria Pendragon."

Arthuria? What would she need to be saved from? She was destined to be the next king of Britain! Something that he had personally seen in his dreams, the glorious age Arthur will bring with his knights. But wait what if his visions didn't show him everything? Only a fraction of what would happen in the future, it is possible that something horrible might befell on the King later, something he would have no idea about. Maybe this was the reason why he had knocked her away and prevented her from pulling out the sword, because she would be saved if she didn't become a king?

So many questions, too many, he would like to ask some more, but looks like that fortune is not given to him at the moment as he felt his bounded field that he had set up in this forest breached, Arthuria most likely got worried and went looking for them, there is no choice he will return to this matter later.

"_**Qohnae"**_ He said the spell word used for waking up someone from trance.

Emiya quickly reawakened and drew Caliburn at Merlin, ready to strike. He gravely noted that he couldn't remember anything after he looked into his eyes; did the old man fiddle with his mind? Most likely

"What did you do?" asked Emiya in a threatening tone

"Just verifying some of my theories and getting to understand your presence here is all."

"Besides I' am no threat to you, if I killed you I would most likely be killed as well."

"But in any case I have decided to support you for now, I shall organize a tournament for you in some days where you can demonstrate your strength and beat anyone who would dare to challenge your kingship."

"Haah" was the only thing Emiya could mutter out at the sudden mood swing of Merlin. Somebody appeared from the nearby bushes, it was Saber, when she noticed that he had his sword aimed at Merlin her eyes narrowed in anger.

"Merlin, did you try to kill the future king of Britain?"

What the hell, why was she coming to his defense now? By every means she should be angry at him for stealing her chance…..

"Hahaha, well that was my original intention, but I wisely decided against it when I learned a bit about his situation." Merlin casually admitted his intentions; he would have to be very careful around this man, as he was unpredictable and dangerous.

"Come you two, there is much to be done for the coming days."

…

Several days passed since then and Merlin kept his promise and set up a tournament, around a hundred prominent nobles and land owners came to the event, no doubt invited by Merlin. Despite festivities going the atmosphere was tense to say the least, and he knew why. Very few people wanted or supported him due to his foreign appearance at least from what he has picked up from the people talking behind his back and the occasional rude glances he got. Merlin said that even if he wins there will be a rebellion and heavy opposition to his authority. But he was not exactly in a position where he could back down, so if a rebellion will happen he will just have to end it with the fewest death as possible.

He was lead up to a makeshift arena where he will be facing his first opponent; he heard that there were over 50 knights and nobles wanting to challenge him.

A large bulky man with massive heavy armour wielding a long sword stepped into the arena, looks this was going to be his first opponent.

Merlin stepped up to the podium and started speaking, "Sir Emiya, your first opponent will be Sir Volkrad, loyal knight under the service of King Mark."

The man in question stepped closer to him and spoke in an intimidating tone to him: "I will enjoy showing you your place, foreigner."

"The first to draw the blood of the opponent wins."

What the hell, this wasn't fair no matter how he looked at it, his opponent was fully armoured, while he was in his usual red and black leather garments, he is at a disadvantage here since Volkrad will be able to draw blood easier than him.

He shot an angry glare towards Merlin, who upon seeing this only smiled back in response.

'That bastard, he is doing it on purpose!'

"Begin!" said Merlin while clapping once signalling the start of the duel.

It can't be helped, he will just have to win, it's not like he wasn't used to fighting in disadvantageous situations.

His opponent didn't hesitate at all and lunged towards him, trying to chop off his head with his massive blade. Emiya ducked under the blade to avoid being decapitated.

That asshole, he was trying to kill him for real, if that blow connected his head would be gone now.

Volkrad didn't stop and immediately followed up with 2 additional massive strikes, he was surprisingly agile despite his massive frame, but Emiya still managed to dodge his blows, he couldn't afford to get hit in this type of duel.

'Let's see, to win I need to stab him under one of the 4 weak points of a plate armour, the neck, the knees, the elbow or the shoulder, those are the weaker points of plate armours since they cannot be as armoured otherwise they would restrict mobility. I just need to create a situation where I can find an opening.'

He waited until Sir Volkrad launched another attack at him, but instead of dodging, he used Caliburn to drive his massive sword into the wooden panels at their feet, it took him only a moment to look at his eyes to realize that his sword was stuck, he quickly twirled around Volkrad and stabbed Caliburn into his elbow, winning the duel.

"The first win goes to Sir Emiya, Sir Volkrad please leave the arena and get your wounds treated."

Volkrad looked like he was about to do something for a moment, but thankfully he left.

A moderate clap sounded from the audience, he could make out the unamused faces of some nobles who undoubtedly wanted him to fail and now were disappointed that he didn't.

Then he heard of a pair of footsteps approaching, and all of his attention was immediately focused on his next opponent, he was nothing like Sir Volkrad, Emiya immediately could tell there was a natural skill and air of power to the man, this man would no doubt prove to a be a challenge.

It was a man with long brown hair sporting blue eyes and a confident smile at him. Merlin stepped forward again and spoke.

"Sir Emiya, this is your next opponent, Sir Kay."

Kay…..

…..as in Sir Kay of the round table, one of the earliest knights of King Arthur? Damn he was screwed, he doubted he would be able to fight head on with such a powerful hero, but again this was not the Sir Kay of legends, this was still only a young boy, inexperienced and rash, he can win this.

"So you are the foreigner that wants to be the king of Britain huh? Don't get cocky, if you dare to go easy on me like you did against Volkrad then you will lose your head. I will defeat you and put my brother on the throne!"

'Aahh, so this is the reason why he was here, well it made sense considering he was one of the most loyal and closest knight to Arthuria.'

He moved closer to Sir Kay and spoke so only they could hear it

"It sounds presumptuous of you to want to put a little girl on the throne; many would agree that even a foreigner like me would be a better choice."

He said this to rile up Kay, as he looked like the type to lose his head quickly.

"What….. how the hell do you know about this, you bastard?"

He only smirked in response and then Merlin raised his hands once again "Begin!"

Emiya thought his ears would rupture as Sir Kay's sword tried to have a slice at him; he was momentarily overcome with nostalgia as he remembered Hercules. Looks like Sir Kay was also strong enough to create blasts of air whenever he strikes, how the hell could he be so strong when he is still so young?

Looks like he needs to what he usually does against stronger opponents, use his special style.

He gripped Caliburn and created an opening for Kay to take, naturally he took it and Emiya simply deflected his sword back. His style may have been created for dual wielding one handed swords, but he was still proficient enough to use it with a 2 handed sword as well, there were many situations in his life where he wasn't afforded to fighting with Kanshou and Bakuya like now.

He repeated the exchange.

And again

And again

Kay was visibly growing annoyed at how he kept deflecting his strikes, that was one of his aims with doing this, make him more agitated, the second was to get used to Kay's fighting style.

He parried another 3 blows naturally while thinking this.

"Stop fucking with me!" Roared Kay as he tried to land another strike only to have it deflected again; however this time he didn't stop at that, instead he brought up his shield and slammed it into Emiya's gut.

Emiya winced from the pain and was thrown back, if he didn't wear this reinforced leather armour, his ribs would most likely be broken now. Kay tried to use the moment while he was trying to recover to land another strike, but Emiya managed to roll to the side.

Looks like he really needed to take him seriously, whether inexperienced knight or not. He flared up his circuits and channelled his od into every part of his body as well as his clothing, reinforcing them.

It was his time to go on the offensive; he took off with much greater speed than before and slammed Caliburn against Kay, he blocked it with his sword, but visibly winced at the pain he got from blocking his strike. Unlike Emiya who was accustomed to fighting opponents stronger than him, Sir Kay wasn't and his wrists couldn't take the blows he was receiving from his reinforced strikes. He capitalized on this and slammed his Caliburn a few more times against his sword each time earning a groan from his opponent.

He was grazing Caliburn against Kay's sword when he noticed that his hands felt extremely hot almost as if they were being burned, he quickly pulled away and looked at Kay to see what caused this, only to notice that his hands were glowing red and his sword was also in the same situation.

He heard that the members of the round possessed supernatural abilities, but he wasn't certain what Kay's abilities exactly were.

"What's wrong, did you really think that you were the only one here who can use a little magic?" Kay boasted mockingly. Looks like he noticed him using his reinforcement

"Not at all, I was just expecting something more impressive than the ability to simply radiate heat from your hand." This was true; he doubted that this ability was even more useful than his reinforcement; it would only be useful like in the previous situation.

"Oh, so you say this is not impressive? Well then how about I show you how much more I got!"

His hands flared with even more intensity, causing his entire armour from the shoulder down to his hand to glow brightly, his sword was also in a similar situation it was completely red from the amount of heat being transmitted to him, and he could see the air shifting around it.

But this exactly what Emiya wanted, and Kay played right into his hands.

Kay raised his sword even faster than before making it looks like he was swinging a medieval lightsaber, Emiya evaded the attack but the heat from the sword almost boiled his face, and a little molten iron fell on his shoulder, burning him, but this also signalled the moment he was waiting for.

He raised Caliburn and used all his strength to strike against Kay sword, it broke and it went right through, grazing Kay's face. He won this duel as well, but only because Kay was foolish and overheated his sword, though it's not like he was allowed to use most of his abilities in this duel, after all sword raining the opponent and tracing wouldn't have been really viewed as chivalrous, and he needed to win with the Sword of the Kings.

There was a look of shock on the boys face as he stared at his broken sword, it probably meant that this was one of the first real losses for the boy and hasn't experienced the taste of defeat before.

"You only lost because you let me rile you up; if you keep to your training and remain cool then you will be sure to become a fine warrior."

He extended his hands towards him, to which he looked angry at first, but then he nodded and smiled as he took his hand and stood up.

"The winner is once again Sir Emiya!"

He looked at the amount of opponents still left and then sighed 'Damn I have a long day ahead of myself.'

….

Emiya eventually won the tournament, he beat 34 of the Knights and the other participants choose to withdraw after seeing him in combat against opponents like Sir Kay, he was extremely exhausted after fighting so many opponents.

He seen that the nobles were extremely irritated at his victories, no doubt they would try to come up with other means to remove him. But he noticed that he won the commoners favour by continuing to fight, the amount of claps and hoorays he received after each fight only kept increasing.

After the fight Sir Kay and Saber appeared before him in his private tent, he couldn't help but notice that Sir Kay had an annoyed look on his face.

Before he could say anything, Saber suddenly kneeled before him and said: "Your majesty, after seeing you pull out the holy sword and then witness you fight against my brother I 'am now certain that you are the one, the one who will become King and save Britain!" in a completely serious and enthusiastic tone before continuing "Because of that, I Arthur, Son of Ector, pledge myself to you, I shall be at your side whatever happens in the future, so I can aid in your quest to unify Britain, as your loyal Knight."

Emiya was completely taken aback by this serious declaration and needed some moments to catch his breath.

"Are you sure about this S…Arthur?" He asked uncertain

"Are you insulting my brother's declaration of loyalty towards you?" Kay flared up angry at him

"No, I wasn't trying to, I just thought you would be angry and resentful towards me since I _did_ deny your chance to pull out the sword."

She smiled at this before saying "You are kind Sir Emiya, the sword choose you to be it's owner, meaning that it wouldn't have considered anyone else worthy, you were the one that is destined to save Britain not me."

"My goals were always to save my beloved country, only a king can save Britain from ruin, if it's me or another is not of importance, if you are the one that is fated to be the one then I shall gladly lay my life down for you as long as it serves Britain."

"I-I understand, then I look forward to working with you Arthur, and please just call me Shirou."

She looked at him in wonder "Very well….Shirou."

"Well I can't say that I'm pleased with my stubborn brothers decision, but if I left her alone he would only end up getting himself killed, so I shall be accompanying you as well, Sir Emiya." Said Kay with some displeasure in his tone

…

Several weeks passed since then, and just as Merlin predicted several rebellions rose out in the lands, most of them rallied by various nobles who refused to bow down to his rule. He had spent the last few weeks eliminating the opposition and stabilizing his authority in Cornwall.

Now he was about to eliminate the last notable member of the resistance a Roman with the name of Castus who used his vast wealth to supply his armies and draw in mercenaries from the east. He was on an overlooking hill with Saber, Merlin and a few group of soldiers, this is where he would execute his plan as it was the perfect sniping point.

He reinforced his eyes to look into the distance and he found the rebel army, as well as Castus who was stupid enough to go on the front, he will pay the price for it.

"_**Trace On**__**" **_he uttered his aria and summoned a black bow.

"Ohoho, you have an interesting ability there, boy." Damn, he forgot that he hasn't showed his tracing ability to anyone yet; he has been using Caliburn only in the last few weeks.

He took aim at Castus and pulled back his bowstring, then held his breath as he concentrated before releasing the arrow, it flew for a while before hitting Castus straight in the head, and he could already see his men panicking over there. Assassination complete, he killed the leader because this way the rest of the army would quickly disband or lose moral, thus fewer lives would be lost.

He dispersed his bow before speaking to Merlin "Send word to Kay that he can attack, and tell him to minimize the casualties if possible."

"Of course, my lord." Said Merlin amused, no doubt because he seen a little bit of his abilities.

Saber gazed at him sadly then spoke "Shirou, that was not honourable, you should have beaten him in a straight fight instead of just murdering him like this…."

"I know Arthur, but this is the method that will spare the most lives, saving lives is more important than honour or chivalry."

Saber couldn't argue back since she knew he was right, but she still had a bad feeling about this, even the act of taking a human life should have rules...

…

After defeating the remaining troops of Castus, Emiya now had complete control over the areas of Cornwall and was pondering on what his next move should be.

His thoughts were interrupted as the air tore itself apart and a woman in a purple-white dress appeared, she was cheerfully waving her umbrella around as she walked closer to him. So this was the person who freed him from Alaya, he was a little disappointed to say the least as she didn't expect someone so powerful to be an immature looking girl.

"Fufu, that took you way too longer than I expected, now you are at a severe disadvantage against the other pieces." She spoke out of the blue

Pieces, disadvantage? What was she talking about?

"What do you mean? I didn't know I had a time limit, well it's not like you really told me about my part of the bargain…."

"I guess you are right, I didn't tell you about anything did I, well just look at it as a little revenge on my part."

Talking with this woman was starting to give him a headache.

"Haah, so will you tell me what did you plunge me into?"

"Well I guess I should at least tell you what this is about."

The woman dropped the carefree demeanour and adopted a completely serious look and pointed at him with her slender fingers.

"Emiya Shirou, I have selected you to be my piece in a game between several beings such as I, each having their own pieces as well!" He really didn't like where this was going

"The goal of the game: the first player whose piece unifies Britain or defeats all other participants will win, fail me and I will show you how lukewarm your fate was with Alaya!"

"That's the gist of it, and you should know that you already severely behind the other pieces, so I came to warn you that you should speed up your conquest if you don't want to lose."

Great so he was put into another sick game and he was already off to a bad start, why was he not surprised?

"Oh and another word of advice, whatever you do, don't go to the northern areas yet, there lies the current strongest piece, _The Manipulator of Fate_."

"Manipulator of Fate…?" Emiya asked confused at such a title

"She is a vampire with really powerful abilities, one of which includes manipulating fate itself, although she is quite different from your world's vampires so you shouldn't go on relying on your current knowledge."

"She has conquered the most territories and rules them through terror and sheer power."

He sighed, 'Vampires from another world, what's next Types?'

"What can you tell me about the other pieces?" He should try to pick up as much information as possible, if he was going to a war information can mean the difference between life and death, and he doubted she would appear here frequently just to satisfy his curiosity.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, since telling you too much would spoil the fun and get the other players angry at me." Great and now she refused to give him what he needed

"Then at least tell me where I should proceed to now if I can't go to the north."

"To the east my piece, to the east, there you will find territories easier to conquer and characters most familiar to you." she said with an amused face

"Familiar characters, who rules the East?" asked Emiya curiously

"We didn't only summon pieces into the game; we summoned several unaligned characters that do not belong to this timeline or even to _this_ world, this way we can keep the game more interesting trough these wild card characters, they may try to conquer areas themselves or do something completely different, who knows fufu."

"It should be in your best interest to keep an eye on these characters and try to recruit them to your forces, as for the leader of the East, it is ruled by a bunch of Pagan tribes that gained power recently, through someone they worship as a goddess, but you might better know her as the Witch of Betrayal."

"Medea….." Archer blurted out, he was definitely not happy with being so close to that bitch at all, he should try to take her out as fast as possible.

"Indeed, well I shall be leaving for now, please do try to entertain me with your progress Shirou-kun." The woman casually opened another gap and was about to step through it before Emiya spoke up.

"Wait; at least tell me who the hell are you?"

To this she mischievously turned around and gave him a seductive look with her colourful violet eyes.

"You may call me, Yukari Yakumo."


	3. Chapter 3

_**I do not own anything, and everything belongs to their respective owners**_

**Chapter 3: The Scarlet Devil**

...Several weeks ago an explosion shook the forests of Northern England; near Hadrian's Wall strange lights filled the night sky that terrified the local population.

Nobody at the time could have predicted what this explosion brought with itself.

The animals have seemed to have completely disappeared from the nearby areas, even the _Giant _tribe that used to plague the villagers so much has also disappeared, as if they left knowing what would be coming _next_.

Few of the village hunters with nothing better to do have went into the forest and tried to find the center of the explosion, only to vanish forever into the woods…

….but this was only the start, soon entire villages went silent, and when the travelers and merchants came to visit from other realms, they could only find ghost towns without any people in them.

The King, forced by the pressure from his people and court had to take action and was forced to investigate what happened, he lead his personal royal guard into the forest to find the missing people.

The following details were told by one of the surviving entourage of the King who had seemingly gone mad from the things he has witnessed during the expedition, so their validity is dubious at best.

They had went into the northern forest, the troops were seemingly uneasy and they were rightly so, the entire forest was dead silent, not a single trace of animals, no sound at all besides their marching and occasional shouting.

You could hear the men talking about the creatures of the Fae living in these forests and how they would come to kidnap them, there was a noticeably low morale within the ranks.

As they further progressed into the forest, night has set in and they occasionally could make out weird shapes and colours in the shadows, they continued marching on despite this, but one grave thing seemed to dawn on the soldiers, they were missing some men, however it was too dark to make sure if that was the case. Some of them were almost certain that something was out there, something that was hunting them down; these people soon started panicking and by the order of the King were put down as mad men to stop them from further decreasing the morale.

They began hearing sounds, strange chatters and childish giggles as they seemed to be heading outside of the forest, if the increasing light was any indication.

They came into a clearing, and upon seeing what was there many of them dropped their swords in sheer awe and wonder.

There was a huge mansion, a mansion that seemed nothing like they seen before, they didn't understand why it would be here in the middle of the forest, but it somehow felt like_ it was always meant to be here._

They were so engrossed by the sight of the mansion that they didn't even notice what was around it.

Thousands of child-like beings floating in the night sky watching them, some of them were giggling, others were simply smiling at them. They all seemed to wear some strange uniform and strange bug-like wings growing from their back.

Behind the smaller army of children was a human with similar clothing as the girls, watching them with an uninterested gaze as if she already knew what their fate would be. They didn't understand how she was floating in the air without any wings; it seemed like an extremely surreal experience.

Then there was a loud creak as the front door of the mansion was opened, from there came out 2 figures whose appearance would be forever ingrained into those who survived this.

They were 2 girls who hardly appeared to be older than 10, the one who walked in the front had bat like wings growing from her back, crimson red eyes and unnatural light blue hair. The eyes drifted from the face down to the girls hands; she was dragging 2 dead soldiers covered in blood with each of her hands. It didn't take a genius to figure out that these were some of the missing soldiers and that their suspicions were right.

"Everyone, welcome to the Scarlet Devil Mansion, I will be your host for the evening, my name is Remilia Scarlet!" She said this in an enthusiastic tone as she casually threw the 2 corpses right into army.

Murmurs erupted from the group of soldiers, some talking about devils and others discussing escaping.

Then an overly sick and sweet voice was heard which drew the attention of all the soldiers once again to the front gate, it was the other figure that they have hardly paid attention to until now, she was even stranger than the girl who identified herself as Remlia, her eyes were similarly red, her hair was of a pale blonde colour. She was barefooted and had a twisted expression on her face, the strangest part of her had to be the wing like protruding from her back, they weren't sure if they could call it wings, as it looked more like 2 dark branches stabbed into her, on each 'wing' many crystal seemed to rest each with a different colour, they were beautiful yet also unnatural.

"Ne onee-sama, can I cut them?" She asked with such an innocent expression that one child would do so when asking for cookies, it sickened and terrified the men who were observing it.

"Sure Flan, do whatever you want with them, they are your toys."

To this the child looked at them with a happy smile, she raised her right hand towards one of the soldiers and made a motion as if she were about to grasp something, she closed her first, and the man exploded into a pool of blood, staining the nearby soldiers.

Several men shrieked in terror at what happened, while the girl only seemed to be highly entertained by all this "Hahahaha, _so red, so red_ hahaha." she clapped with her hands happily at the sight of the blood, "Hey, show me some more."

After that no one quite knew what happened, there were many exaggerated reports of her destroying the whole royal guard by herself, bathing in their blood while doing so, some reports said of strange beams of light and projectiles coming from the girl that skewered men if they hit and of a flaming blade that could kill hundreds of soldiers with a single swing.

It wasn't known why several soldiers were kept alive, some speculated was so they could spread tales of them and wreak terror into hearts of the population, never the less if that was the reason or not, the Scarlet Devil quickly became known through the entirety of Northern Britain. Tales that scary devils with red eyes and fangs rested in the forests that would suck out your blood if you wandered into them. For some time it remain nothing more than another story mothers could use to scare their children at night, until the Scarlet Devil decided to make her move in the game…..

Her conquest was sudden and swift; she used the weakened state of that country that it was in, because of the dead king and the infighting nobles who fought to get even more power and authority. Few could oppose her, and those who did, quickly met their end. Some nobles even sold their alliance to the Scarlet Devil in exchange for power; these men would be viewed as outcasts by the other nobles. She proclaimed that the territories she had taken were now rightfully hers and named the collective of her kingdom, Transylvania.

Her powers were immense, with a single spell she could annihilate entire armies, and so direct resistance was out of the question, a very large portion of the army decided to desert to Remilia in fear of their lives. So the nobles were left to conspire with each and another about how they would take out the Little Devil, they would never accept some demonic brat ruling over them.

But soon they found out that the Scarlet Devil did not only excel at direct combat, but at subterfuge as well. Soon more and more cells of the resistance gone silent and stopped reporting altogether, which made the remaining nobles highly anxious and scared.

_This brings us to the present._

20 agitated nobles sat around the table discussing on how to deal with the Scarlet Devil, they didn't know yet, but they were the last members of the resistance, everyone else was already either dead or joined sides with Remilia. They were at a loss on what to do next, so they just holed up in a castle far away in the outer reaches of the country and hoped that they would be able to come up with something.

The table was silent and it was only disturbed by occasional finger tapping of a nervous noble and the servants walking in and out with refreshments and food.

Assassination was impossible, they had attempted it numerous times only to have them fail, and with the recent rumour that Remilia is actually an immortal it sure didn't look like a feasible idea.

"How about we ask for help from other countries?" A fat noble broke the silence with his question.

"Please do tell why anyone would be willing to come to our aid when she can annihilate entire armies all by herself, no sane King would send their men to die." Replied a more refined looking noble

"What about Babylon, the newly emerged country? It is really close to us and I heard rumours about their King that were on the same level as the Scarlet Devil here, he might be willing to help us."

"Don't count on it; he is currently at war with that girl who calls herself Nero."

"Then I suggest allying with the _Pagan Queen of Wessex,_ I have reliable information stating that she has been supplying the local countries with forces and resources in case they go to war with Transylvania, maybe they would be willing to lend us a hand." A noble said reluctantly

"You dare suggesting alliance with mere heretics!?" Raged another noble, but this was to be expected, most of the population here were catholic and thus refused to associate with the pagans.

"Sometimes there are sacrifices to be made, Sir Marius. We either swallow up our pride and ask for help or we let the country fall into the hands of a devil."

Suddenly there were multiple sounds that sounded similar to flesh being stabbed, several guards let out a "Huh" before fading away into the world of darkness, their now limp bodies were filled with knives.

The nobles noticed something that wasn't there a second ago, there stood a grey haired woman in white-blue maid clothes looking at them with a cool expression on her face, hands folded beneath her breasts. All of the nobles paled at the sight of her, they knew very well _who she was_ and what she was going to do them, some futilely tried to escape from their seats, others have started to beg for mercy.

"For conspiring against ojou-sama, your penalty is death." After she said this, time has stopped once more; she picked out various knives from her garter belt, one for each of his targets. She has arranged each knife in the air so that when time resumed each of them would hit one of the nobles in the head, ending their life fast and painlessly, she has done this countless times since she has entered this world as the conspirators against Scarlet ojou-sama were many.

Time resumed itself and silently the nobles all fell at the same time, the castle was now silent and the only one present was the girl, her name was Izayoi Sakuya. She served as the head maid to the Scarlet Devil Mansion and as a loyal attendant to her mistress, Remilia Scarlet. Despite being the only human in the mansion, she had the outlandish ability to manipulate space and time, which made her the perfect assassin, something which Remilia has been using quite frequently in the recent times.

A second has gone by and all presence of her was gone and the knives were no longer sticking out of the nobles as well, after a few more minutes guards would come to check up on the meeting, only to find them dead and futilely search for a killer for the next few hours.

…

Remilia Scarlet was sitting in an imperial chair sipping a blood red liquid with a bored expression on her face. She had expected more from this world, yet everything has been laughably easy so far, playing tyrant has amused her for a while, but it wore out its novelty as well, the feeble resistance of the nobles was also just proving to be an annoyance now, so she had sent Sakuya to eliminate them, permanently.

Currently she was at war with a small duchy to the west of her; it was all most about fallen but has been holding far longer than some of the bigger territories, although truth to be told that had more to do with her refusing to take any action herself so far. She would entertain herself with the struggle of his men trying to take the castle for a while. Once she had taken it she would progress down to the south so they can fight that Babylon where she heard a really strong King lies. Maybe he will be able to entertain her...

…

On the battlefield a fierce fight has been going on for the last 16 hours, both sides were visibly tired but none would relent their assault, the men of Transylvania more so because in fear of being executed in case they do so. The battlefield was covered by a scarlet mist that didn't let any sunlight in, this mist covered most of the territories of Transylvania as Remilia was a vampire, she didn't like the light of the sun, so she had simply blocked it out in her territories.

However this also made any agricultural activities virtually impossible as no plant could get their food this way. She didn't care much if the people died of hunger, but it would be a problem if they revolted, so she encouraged raiding activities within the populace, if they want food they should just raid other countries and take it from them. Many of her soldiers were fighting for this reason; if they won they could provide food for their families.

The troops of Scarlet were in despair, they were ordered to take the castle no matter what losses they suffer, which proved to be an extremely difficult task because of how well fortified the castle was and because everyone of their siege weapons were destroyed by the enemy.

A group of soldiers relentlessly charged towards the castle walls, carrying ladders in their hands in a desperate attempt to try and get a ground on the castle. Hail of arrows kept pouring and pouring on them, tearing their formation apart. Many men fell to the ranged attacks, but by some miracle they managed to mount the ladders upon the walls. A group of men started climbing already, only to have the ladders destroyed what would appear to be a _red spear_ going in impossible directions, but it was no red spear, it was just solidified blood that came from the girl overseeing the assault from above.

This girl was Meia Bloodroad, she had long golden blond hair tied together with a red ribbon, she wore a black leather jacket on her shoulders and a red dress underneath it, and her legs were adorned by a pair of thigh high stockings, which really made her stand out given the usual garments in this era and time. Her physical appearance on the other hand wasn't older than that of a 12 year old, but this was no normal child by any means, she was a vampire with the ability to manipulate and control blood.

Meia was one of the many _wild cards_ that were summoned into the game, she was residing in the southern areas of Britain, until Medea occupied the town she was staying at, out of boredom she decided to join the forces of Medea for now and she was acting as an envoy of her to this backwater area. The Witch of Betrayal wanted to win this game and didn't like how one of the northern players was gaining so much territories and power, so she has been actively supplying and assisting the other countries for a while now.

She observed with a bored expression as more and more men kept rushing to their deaths against the castle walls. She didn't like it, battles should have more excitement, this was just boring, these men were sacrificing themselves because of sheer fear of running away and defying the orders of a being much powerful than them. This whole battle was pointless, Remilia could just take this castle whenever she wanted by lending a finger, yet she is just letting her men needlessly die. Bloodroad let a frown shown her face, before heading into castle interiors to escape from this disgusting sight.

Even her presence here has been nothing more than to grasp the power of Transylvania and test out the creations of Medea, once that was done she would finally be able to leave this place behind. She made her way towards the war room, where the lord of this castle and his entourage were holed up cowardly. She made her way towards one of the seats and promptly sat down, placing her heels on the table.

All the nobles including the Lord glared at her in anger for her carefree display.

"Why the hell aren't you outside protecting us?" Gaius, Lord of the Castle raged at her

Meia just twirled her hair, being annoyed with a lowly mortal questioning her, before answering.

"The enemy have no way of breaching the castle for now, all their siege weapons and ladders have been destroyed, all they can do is now wait for reinforcements to come, so there is little need for me to be out there. Besides if you think you can do better Lord Gaius, then you should perhaps command the forces yourself."

Gaius didn't like being handed down by a child, but he bit his tongue down before he said anything rash, he knew very well that Meia was the only thing still keeping the castle together.

….

General Bartley was on his way to her highness residence with his body guards, he was extremely nervous since he has to report his failures to capture the castle and ask assistance from mistress Scarlet. Bartley was one of the nobles who sold out their brethren in exchange for power, he was a snake and a lowly man, but Remilia kept him around since he was useful for commanding the human forces.

He reached the door, and he gestured to his subordinates that they should wait here; he pushed the door open and entered to see Remilia sitting on a throne.

She didn't even bother to look at him and just asked "Have you come to report your failures to me, Bartley?"

'I probably gave it away with my anxiousness.' He thought

"Yes milady, I regret to inform you that we have been unable to secure the castle, due to unforeseen circumstances." He said with his head hung shame

Her eyes flared with some interest at those words "Please do tell me what those circumstances were."

Bartley bit on his tongue hoping he wouldn't offend her "I believe that we may have encountered one of your kin, she has red eyes just like you, appears to be extremely young and wielded her magical abilities to destroy our siege weapons." He wasn't certain if they were the same kind, but he really wanted to get out of this with his head intact so it was a good excuse.

"Hoh, someone like me you say, and what is it you expect me to do, general Bartley?" She sounded amused by the concept of another vampire being with the enemy, and Bartley had picked up on this

He wasn't a stupid man, she most likely wanted to go there and fight the vampire to escape the boredom, so he would only need to give a reason to his mistress. "Our forces are still holding out, but being slaughtered unless you lend them your aid, please help us take the castle!" he sank to his knees.

She looked at him like she was about to kill him, maybe he shouldn't have said those words. But when he thought he was going to die, Sakuya, the head maid stepped into the room to make a report to the mistress.

"Ojou-sama I have successfully dealt with the conspirators as you have ordered." she said somewhat proudly

"Good work Sakuya; Flan should be getting hungry, go make dinner for her will you." Remilia ordered

"Of course, ojou-sama."

She gazed back at Bartley before declaring "Very well, I shall assist in the siege of the castle myself."

…..

Meia watched how the situation has turned into a stalemate, the castle's soldiers have run out of projectiles to fire at the enemy, while the other side had no ways to breach the castle walls, so both sides have just camped down and entered into a silly staring contest.

She suddenly felt a gust of wind that reeked of blood. Looks like the so called Devil will be making her appearance after all. She retreated from the walls and went into the area where she kept Medea's little experiments.

These creatures were called _chimera_, they were the result of combining various creatures together using magic, resulting in an even more powerful creature that could be used for warfare, Medea wanted her to test how useful these could be in actual combat. She found the creatures to be disgusting and loathed having to spend any time with them.

She had 5 creatures total, all of them looked the same since they were the same breed, a combination of a hill giant and the giant wolves found in the forests, the end result looked somewhat similar to a werewolf. They were enchanted to be absolutely obedient towards her, they weren't intelligent by any means, but would be able to follow basic orders and fight through instinct.

….

Remilia wings darkened the sky as she approached the castle, horrifying the castle defenders, while his soldiers cheered for her, no doubt happy that they won't have to linger here any longer now that she was here.

She focused the energy in her palms, it grew and grew until it formed a red spear of energy, she threw it mercilessly towards the castle, an explosion shook the area, and both the walls and the defenders were completely obliterated.

The soldiers quickly took this opportunity to charge into the castle and slay any of the remaining soldiers, it seemed almost as if they had successfully taken the caste, but then several bestial roars rang out in the castle, 3 meter tall black furred wolf creatures stampeded out of the now ruined castle walls, mercilessly knocking the fools who have went in to try and take the castle with their brutish strength.

The chimeras continued their brutal march as they relentlessly tore though the soldiers, their huge bodies easily crushing the lives out of the soldiers, their claws sharp enough to easily rend away the armor of even the toughest knights. One Chimera picked up a men and used his body as a weapon to crush the other soldiers still daring to fight against them, another chime simply sliced apart several soldiers in one blow. Shrieks of terror and pain erupted from within the troops of Remilia as their miserable lives were easily extinguished.

These creatures were too powerful, every fiber of their beings exuded power, they were engineered to kill and to battle, yet even despite this several soldiers were brave enough to charge at one of them and concentrate their efforts. "Aarrgh, Kill it!" the war cry of a knight sang out as he used his huge bastard sword to demolish the legs of the creature making it fall down to the ground, of course the creature simply crushed him after that with it's huge paws, however with this sacrifice he gave the chance needed for the other soldiers.

The soldiers of scarlet plunged themselves onto the creature in unison, each stabbing or bludgeoning it with all their might, whimpers akin to a dog's cry leaked out from the creature's mouth as it experienced this treatment, several slashes hit the nape of the creature, yet it still lingered onto the head, a large man tried to rend it apart with his huge axe, but upon hitting the body of the chimera his weapon shattered, however the head was now almost completely off, it would take little to decapitate this and the other soldiers saw this.

Several soldiers started pulling on the hand with all the strength they could muster while the others kept the creatures limbs at bay by severing the tendons. And with a final whimper the chimeras life briefly ended as the soldiers successfully separated the head from the body. The soldiers looked relieved and victorious at the moment, however this was short lived as the head started shaking strangely after being separated.

It twitched and twitched, then it grew, cancerous like growth started forming from the neck and it extended, they could see bone and muscle forming from the strange mess of a flesh. It grew larger and larger as every little cell and part of it connected to make something whole, soon there was a huge wolf in front of the soldiers which was missing it's skin and fur, the whole body was red with blood and veins throbbed violently on it, it was a horrifying sight to look at.

It growled then simply jumped on one of the nearby soldiers before proceeding to devour him, his companions had tried to save him, but they were also torn apart by the body that was resting behind them. Just like the head, the body has grew new parts as well, now instead of 1 now 2 wolf heads lay on top of it's neck, and it seemed that the creature had grown even larger.

Meia had watched with little amusement as the chimeras ate through the wall of soldiers, the moment when they realized that they couldn't kill them was quite fascinating, but still over all it was a boring fight because of the same one sided nature to it. She let her gaze wander off until she came across a figure in the sky, it was hard to make out due to the distance, but she was certain that it was the Scarlet Devil, 'who else would have wings in this place?'

'Let's see how strong this so called 'devil' is against the Monarch of Blood.' She thought this as she focused herself, drawing her own blood out to make a hardened spear of blood. It was way bigger than to be wielded by a small girl like her, but she expertly gripped it and threw it at her target.

The spear flew, drawing a red line behind it, however she wasn't done with just this, while it was still in air she used her ability to break the weapon down into even smaller shards of blood, making it harder to dodge.

Even though Remilia was watching the battle with the Chimeras down below she dodged the shards that came at her like child's play. She was somewhat amused at the concept that someone would dare to shoot her down, she tried to locate her wannabe assassin, and it came upon a 12 year old looking blonde girl, but Remilia knew just by looking that she was no child or a mere vampire either.

'I see, so that's the girl Bartley was talking about, she is most likely the one who released those beasts, I wonder what someone like her is doing here.' She amused the thought of fighting her here, but decided against it, she would let her go for now and wait for their next meeting, it would be wasteful to end one of her potential source of entertainment so soon.

Meia felt herself evaluated by the Scarlet Devil as she gazed at her in a cold and calculating manner, with a wicked smile that showed off her teeth, before letting it drop and gazing back the chimeras. Looks like she wasn't going to fight her, she had mixed feelings about this, on one hand it meant that she would miss a fight against an exceptional enemy that also happened to be her kin, while on other she wasn't sure if she could beat her if it came to a fight. This possibility frightened her, since due to her powers of blood she was given authority over living beings, as all that is alive possesses blood, she could easily end their life without even fighting just by draining their blood or making it solidify within their bodies. Yet for some reason, she felt as if even if she did that, _the Devil would survive somehow._

The soldiers seemed to stand no chance against the _now_ 6 chimeras, each of them could easily rip apart a soldier with a single claw, their giant forms inspired terrors into the hearts of men, _these creatures couldn't be slain_ they thought, _these were true monsters_ they thought, the fear of the chimera overcame the fear of Remilia and several soldiers made a run for it.

Further slaughter of the troops was prevented when a girl with purple hair and purple pajamas came to the battlefield and froze the creatures in blocks of ice with a simple spell. This was Patchouli Knowledge, friend of Remilia who spent most of her time in the Scarlet Devil Mansion's library, for unknown reason she has decided to actually move and join Remilia on this assault. The soldiers showered her with hoorays and words of gratitude for sparing them from having to fight against those monsters; she blushed at the amount of attention she was receiving.

Meia Bloodroad had her purpose fulfilled with that; she thought that it was useless to make those beasts so strong if they could be eliminated with a spell like this. She headed back into the interiors to get her belonging and leave this place, finally.

She entered the room and came face to face with Lord Gaius, 'damn this idiot is going to obstruct me'

"Meia, what's happening, why aren't you outside? I have been hearing strange noises from the outside."

"Your men are dead Gaius, I'm the only remaining, and I'm leaving as well, you have lost this battle." She told him bluntly, she didn't have time to waste on this idiot.

"W-What!? You can't just leave, what about our agreement?" The insolent fool dared to grab her arms and shake her

To this she materialized a blade of blood and stabbed Gaius right through the heart, "Our agreement was over the moment my business was concluded, only a fool would stay here to get slaughtered by the Scarlet Devil".

He looked at him with an anguished and betrayed look on his face, her face was getting red at the sight of it, she could never get tired of killing people like this, the reactions were always so amusing.

She kicked the body away and picked up her belongings only to hear someone burst through the door when she was about to leave.

It was a girl with red hair and green Chinese outfit, 'Great, looks like Gaius managed to stall me long enough that the Devil's forces have arrived'.

"Ah the enemy commander!" she said somewhat sheepishly as if she wasn't expecting her. "Prepare yourself, my name is Hong Meiling!" The girl announced and entered a martial arts stance.

"Meia Bloodroad, sorry but I don't have time to enjoy a fight." She said somewhat sad, at any other time she would have gladly picked up a fight with someone strong enough.

She summoned a blood lance and tried to end this quickly by stabbing the girl in the vitals, but to her surprise Meiling tossed the spear out of the way with her bare hands. She then stepped forward with her fist raised, glowing with energy and tried to hit Meia with it. Meia managed to dodge and summoned a sword this time. She tried to pounce at Meiling only to get hit by some bizarre swirling rainbow like attack that the Chinese girl placed on the ground, then she gathered energy into her hands until it formed a giant blue orb and launched it at her, she completely absorbed the blood from Gaius's body and formed a shield of blood from it, deflecting the orb of energy.

She hated these types; the types who would use multiple kinds of abilities, fighting her would be tiresome and would take too much time, something she didn't have at the moment. So she decided to not fight and just end her right now.

Meia focused her ability, her eyes started glowing with a vivid red colour as she looked at Meiling.

Meiling was forced to ground clutching her stomach, her eyes, ears, mouth and nose started profusely bleeding, her whole body was shaking and her complexion was quickly draining. Meia only had a blank look at her face, she didn't enjoy killing strong opponents like this, she instead preferred to beat them in a contest of true strength and skill.

"S-Stop…..it…." Meiling managed to growl out, this was an especially painful move, Meia was boiling every blood cell in Meiling's body, making her shudder in pain, she concentrated some more, earning another painful groan from Meiling, she increased her intensity...

...and the next moment Meiling exploded and left only a pile of blood at the floor, Meia used this opportunity to disperse into a cloud of blood and escape back to Wessex.

If she had stayed a few seconds longer she would have noticed the blood of Meiling slowly gathering together and building up, until she was completely the same as before. Meiling may look human, but she was actually a youkai, a conceptual being fueled by people's fears and superstitions, they were extremely hard to kill and regenerated from the gravest injuries.

….

**AN: This honestly wasn't intended to be a whole chapter, I just planned to write a short 500 word introduction for Remilia, but it grew into something else along the way, sorry if the lack of Emiya annoyed somebody. Next Chapter we will be returning to Emiya and his group and begin what will be first chapter in the 'Medea Arc'.**

**On my profile you can find the current territories with a map and a picture of Meia if you are interested what she looks like.**

**Answering some reader questions:**

**Yes, Medea is holed up in Wessex**

**No, Remilia is not in Scotland**

**The Roman Empire is still around but already crumbling apart, anyway I still need them around for plot relevant reasons**

**Wales technically didn't exist yet at this time**

**Arthuria is a Breton**

**I don't know if I will introduce other Touhou characters or not, the whole of SDM is present, as well as Yukari, I'm still trying to think of possible factions, so some more might appear or they might not, anyways I'm open to suggestions.**

**As for Excalibur, Arthuria didn't get it until she broke Caliburn, so I will most likely go the same way.**


	4. Chapter 4

_**I do not own anything and everything belongs to their respective owners**_

**Chapter 4: Medea's Offensive and the fall of Dummonia**

The southern areas of Britain were filled with the sounds of a feast, a feast of depravity and chaos. The light from many bonfires filled the night sky and over a thousand moving bodies could be seen, dimly lit by the fires. Strange smells of human odour and blood were filling these areas as the heap of bodies moved together as one.

Strange people wearing the remains of animals could be seen walking and talking amongst the crowds, occasionally directing their fellow men or chanting some eerie words. Many more men could be seen coming out from the woods, adding to the already large numbers by the second, sometimes they could be seen carrying people who weren't the same them, these were captives taken from the roman and catholic settlements, they were bound with ropes to prevent their escape.

A mother and her boy were dragged violently into the ritual, the boy was scared and confused, and he didn't understand what was going on. He felt hazy from the strange smell that was lingering in this area, he didn't understand why were so many naked people and what were they doing. His eyes would occasionally linger to some cauldrons that people in goat heads were brewing, the mixture in it was of a strange purple colour and occasionally great bubbles would come out of them. Another of the goat heads could be seen carrying a sack as he approached the cauldron, he went up to it and poured its contents into it. He looked closer to see what it was and he could make out the severed remains of human beings, a head and arm to be more specific, at this the mother user her hands to shield the vision of the young boy.

„M-Mom where are we, what are all these people doing? I'm scared." asked the boy concerned

„I...I don't know, just don't do anything rash and everything will be all right" Said the woman too scared to even comfort her child

Any further conversation was silenced as they were dragged into a group of people who were dancing around a bonfire, several people quickly came out of the circle and took her mother; they stripped her down and started painting her body with some sort of red liquid. He had tried to save her, but was quickly taken away by a group of naked girls in body painting.

"Stop, let me go! Mom!" The boy cried out desperately, he could make out the face of his mom looking back at him, tears sliding down her cheek. One of the girls quickly took him to her bosoms, while another brought a purple liquid in a cup, she brought it to boys mouth and tried to make him drink it, but as he remembered what was in the cauldron he quickly spat it out.

The girl only smiled at this and then took another cup and drank it herself, then she moved herself forward and kissed the boy, forcing him to drink the vile liquid. The boy's eyes became blank after this and now willingly followed the girls to wherever they were taking him.

The mother had watched his son taken away in despair knowing that she would never see him again; she knew very well where they were taking him, indoctrination. She heard rumours in the city about how the barbarians would take young children and re-educate them to be one of their own. The hands of the barbarians stopped caressing her, returning her attention to her body, she noticed that many strange patterns and symbols were painted upon her body, her hands and legs have been completely tied down, making her unable to move.

She noticed that a Goat Head was approaching her with what appeared to be a ritual dagger, she knew that the man was a barbarian shaman, so this was it, she was going to end up as a sacrifice to whatever filthy old gods these barbarians worshiped?

The goat head knelt over her, dagger in hand and started chanting strange words: "**Erosam, ar nesio finn tioth fo un dreran as ar maum ponn no iorgath gau firn ion folberio ev niro**." And then dagger came down and pierced her in the heart, she coughed in pain, but wasn't allowed to rest as the dagger came down and again and again, then the goat head used his hands to rip out her heart and show it to his companions, who only cheered at this.

….

These were the pagan tribes of the south, until recently they were nothing but a bunch of scattered tribes living in isolated areas and in forests, oppressed by the upcoming religion of Catholicism and the Roman Empire. But now the Roman Empire had to withdraw most of its forces back to the main land to face the barbarian threats, the pagans were left to rampage as they pleased.

However the cities could still defend themselves against the pagan pillagers as they were heavily unorganized and without any leadership, only the people living in small villages and occasional travelers were in danger, but then the pagans rallied under the one they call their _goddess of victory. _Nobody quite knows who this so called goddess is, but ever since this name has surfaced the pagan raids have become extremely organized and soon they controlled entire areas and became too large for individual cities to deal with.

Hearing these victories, many pagan tribes from other areas have come out of hiding and decided to join the goddess; because of this the pagan army was now in tens of thousands. But this was not all that there was to the pagan forces, soon they would learn that the goddess was capable of great miracles and works of magic, making her able of assisting the troops in battle to turn the tides easily with a single spell.

After this entire kingdoms fell one by one to the might of the pagan army, soon tales of how there were giant beings that were capable of crushing castles in their army, as well as tales on how their armies emerged seemingly from nowhere had appeared all over the southern areas, no one had any idea who would be conquered next and who would fell to these pagan upstarts, every king was biding their time, arming themselves, hoping that it wouldn't be them that will be attacked next, and hoping that somebody else would save their hides from this menace.

….

There was a commotion in one of the areas and more and more pagans came to join to see what it was about. Tiny droplets of blood started appearing on the ground, then more and more, they started to converge into one place and formed a pool. The shamans kept the others at bay since they already knew what was happening. After few more minutes Meia Bloodroad emerged from the pool of blood, upon seeing her everyone bowed down at her presence, only the shamans remained standing.

An aged shaman came before her carrying a cup of red liquid and offered it to her.

"Blood Goddess you have returned." said the old man as he extended the cup to her

'Heh, _Goddess_' she found it amusing that just like Medea was praised one due to her elfish ears, blue hair and delicate princess like features she herself was regarded one as well due to her exotic appearance and supernatural abilities.

Meia simply took the offering and drank it, she knew from the taste that it was the blood of a 13 year old virgin girl, most vampires would find it exhilarating but she only rated it a step above common blood. She had desires for the blood of warriors and heroes instead, the men and women who would spend times and hours on honing their bodies to perfection and break through their natural limits, those bloods tasted the best.

'Well it's not like these fools would be able to come with a better offering, so I see no need to reprimand them.'

"Indeed I have, I got news for your _Queen_."

"Of course your highness, please follow me."

….

The old shaman led him to underground temple that Medea had constructed and left her at the door, only the ones that belonged to Medea's inner circle could enter and _of course_ those who were completely at her control.

She entered the depths of the temple where Medea would be located, on her way she came across many of what the pagan's called _chosen ones_ standing next to the walls faithfully awaiting orders like a machine. The pagans believed that these people were personally selected by their Goddess to receive her favours, but in truth she had chosen most of them at random, and the things she had done to them was hardly any favour. She had completely wiped them of their mind and personality, becoming no more than mere dolls; this was also the reason why they were permitted into this place, as nothing that they would hear would be brought out into the surface.

On the plus side they had been severely enchanted with magic, who knows what horrifying things may lie in their bodies, remembering those chimeras probably nothing good, she used her senses to momentarily look at them as a vampire would, their heart beat were 10 times faster than a normal person's and their body temperature were way higher than any living thing she had encountered, she wondered what horrifying things she had done to these men.

It's not like she had any right to berate her on this, she herself had many times twisted the forms of living things and abused her power when she was younger. She noticed that their numbers have vastly increased since her departure from here, 'I wonder what she is planning to do with so many of them, considering she has never sent them to a battle so far.'

She arrived at the deepest part of the temple, which was richly decorated and it's most notable part was the _Well_ in the middle of it, which blue glow illuminated the rest of the area. As far as she understood Medea's explanation that thing is a '_ley line_' a point where the planet's power and energy converge into one location, she said that this ley line is connected to every other ley line in Britain, she uses the prana harvested from this to fuel her larger spells.

In truth this is the real reason why she had settled down here, she didn't know that the area was an important ritual site to the pagans; she just took them in on a whim and others joined until it grew into the large army that is now.

"Oh, Meia-chan you have returned!" said a cheerful voice in Japanese as she noticed the blue haired samurai waving at her.

"Yes, I have Sasaki-san, has anything happened in my absence?" she said switching into Japanese, this man was Sasaki Kojirou, the person she could get along with the most among Medea's group, he shared her love of the battle so they ended up sparring several times and as well as watching each others backs in battles, she loved when they would play games like 'who will kill the enemy commander first' or 'who can defeat the most enemies in a battle.'

"Hell no, things have been extremely boring since you left, the witch haven't done anything besides staring at that crystal ball of hers and occasionally mumbling to herself, she also refused to let me go outside in fear of me getting away to fight to my heart's contest's."

"Don't worry now that I have returned I'm sure Medea-san will send us to battle soon." she said reassuringly

"If you say so, by the way, have you come to face with the rumoured Scarlet Devil?" Sasaki asked curiously

She frowned momentarily before speaking answering "Yes I have, she was the toughest opponent I have ever laid my eyes on, I'm….not really sure if I would be able to kill her if it came to a battle." This truly terrified her, as it was something completely new to her existence, not once in her long life had she met an opponent that she was afraid of.

"Ohoho, an opponent that Meia-chan is afraid of, must be quite the person, I wonder if we will attack her next."

She waved Sasaki a goodbye and went to make her report to Medea. On her way she came across 2 more figures lazily resting in a luxury bed, a green haired woman was playing with the hair of the purple haired one that had a blindfold on her face; she didn't pay them much heed as she passed them. Both of them have been picked up from conquered territories on the suspect of being _wild cards_. She hasn't found anything special about the green haired one, unless you count her exceptional laziness, she also refused to speak to anyone for some reason. The purple haired one was a different matter though.

Ever since she has arrived, Medea has treated her like one would treat an old acquaintance and has been content to just let her do whatever she pleases. And she hasn't really done anything besides lazing around and occasionally mingling with the pagan crowds. What was the most strange about the purple haired woman is that _she desired her_, she wanted to drink her blood and drain her dry, she didn't understand why she was getting urges like this, she wasn't a fledgling vampire after all.

Of course she had restrained herself so far as she was a high class vampire, but soon the curiosity will take over and she will try to have a taste to see what she tastes like. She didn't understand why her senses were telling her that she was a fine treat, she didn't really look like a warrior at all, it confused her, was there perhaps something special to the purple haired woman?

She stopped the monologue that was going inside her head as she approached the witch of betrayal. That woman was still staring at the crystal ball just like when she left her for her mission, she briefly wondered if she has gone out at all.

"I have returned." she announced as she stepped forward

"Ah Meia, how was your little _trip _to Transylvania?"Medea said, not even bothering to look away from the ball.

"The scarlet devil is just as strong as the rumours said. Also, it seems that she has several interesting people under her command, most likely wild cards. One of them seemed to be a martial artist with some sort of supernatural abilities, you don't need to worry about her as I eliminated her, the other seems to be a mage who has captured the Chimeras that you sent with me."

"How had she captured them?" she asked with little interest

"She trapped them in large blocks of ice."

"Yes, that is something I can easily fix within the next generation of chimeras, I wonder if the mage will try to recreate them though based on the captured ones, it would be bad for us if we will have to face an army of chimeras when will attack them…."

"Don't worry, if it comes to battle I can easily eliminate them… does this mean we are going against Transylvania next?"

"No, we are not going to do that, I doubt we would have the man power to take them on, here come look at this." Medea gestured towards the crystal ball

Meia went closer and looked into it, she seen that there was a battle going inside it "What's this?" she asked

"It's the last city of a _piece_ called Nero; soon it will be taken over by the forces of Babylon, a new country led by a wild card like me. Once they are done with Nero they will most likely move to the north where they will encounter the forces of Transylvania, and even if they don't, considering how close these 2 nations are, the Scarlet Devil will undoubtedly try to lay her hands on their territories."

"So you are just content to let them fight against each other, so they will be weakened when you choose to attack them, a smart tactic, but it hinges on the factor whether or not the king of Babylon is as strong as they say." Meia added

"It does not matter, if they are strong they will bleed each other out, and if they are not they will stall them long enough that we can gain enough power to defeat them, both situations serve our needs. This is why we will start conquering the surrounding countries, with our current force they should easily buckle under our might."

"Hoh, finally some action, so who have you picked out to be our target?"

"We will proceed to take Dummonia then march onward to Cornwall; both of them are currently weak due to the recent civil wars they have suffered."

…..

Emiya was kind of getting used to his new position, but even that didn't make it any less boring, he was currently sitting on his throne receiving the people who had an audience with him. Many people were still bitter about a foreigner becoming their king, but the nobles have been put in their place knowing that they do not have the might to oppose him, most of his meetings so far have been about additional military funds in preparation for a coming war with the pagans and about repairing the lands that were ravaged during the rebellion.

He had enough, he was not the person who would sit on the throne, he was a man of actions! Yes, he would go crazy if he sat there an hour longer. He sat up and promptly made his way towards the window.

"K-King Emiya were are you going?" asked an attendant

"I'm just going to the toilet." and jumped out of the window, he of course expertly landed without any damage received.

'Now, where should I go?' as he was pondering on this, he heard the sounds of a sword clash, so he had decided to investigate, as swords were one of the few things that interested him, among saving people and tormenting his younger self….

He came upon Kay who was dueling with someone he hasn't recognized. The other person had a rather feminine face despite being a male; he had dull green eyes and pale blond hair that ended in a pair of braids.

Whoever it was, he was good, very good, seeing how easily he met Kay's strikes and redirected them with ease. His strikes were so fast that he was having a hard time following them. Kay seemed to be sweating and panting from the exhaustion while the other knight didn't look one bit fazed. Kay tried to land in another strike and then….

…_. 2 instantaneous strikes….._

…_.1 knocking away the sword that was about to strike him…._

…_and a second that scratched his face ending the match._

Emiya was left agape at the display of speed, no…. he was certain that this wasn't about speed anymore, he couldn't even see the sword strike, his mind briefly remembered a certain servant from the Holy Grail war.

_Tsubame Gaeshi_, that was the name of Assassins secret technique, a deadly strike that left no room for escape, his abilities has surpassed the rules of nature and made it able that his blade was in 3 places at one for a short time. Could there really be someone here that achieved something similar to that devilish strike? Well this was still the age of the gods where heroes were born, so it wouldn't be that out of place, but still to think that 2 completely unrelated figures would be able to come up with such similar techniques, he wondered who this knight was.

Kay was helped up by the other knight who now has sheathed his sword.

"You won again, I really don't seem to stand a chance against your technique, and you only seem to get faster each time we spar, that last blow was something else." blew out Kay

The other knight put his hands on Kay shoulders and said in a grave voice "Kay…. you must get stronger, you haven't gone out of this country yet so you are not aware of the terrifying powers and rumours that are surfacing, but if this country's knights do not get stronger then this country shall be devoured by one of the many new emerging powers."

"Wha-"he was about to ask but was cut off when Emiya walked closer to them.

"Your friend seems to know a lot, Kay would you mind introducing us."

Kay seemed annoyed that Emiya tried to intrude on their conversation, but obeyed his king nonetheless.

"Yes my lord, this is my friend Bedivere, Bedivere this is my liege, Emiya Shirou."

Bedivere? Another member of Arthur's round table has appeared before him, just like this? What should he do? According to Yukari he needs all the hands he can get to unify Britain and no doubt his skills would be useful in doing so.

"Ah so you are the rumoured foreigner King of Cornwall , it seems that you are quite aware of the events happening outside despite being so busy in civil war for weeks, _or perhaps you are just another part of the bizarre events that's been happening in Britain recently_?"

'This man seems to know something, I should try to recruit him, I doubt he would join without me doing anything, this timeline has already moved way too far away from Saber's timeline even without my interference.'

"I guess a foreigner being crowned is strange no matter how you look at it." He chuckled a little before continuing "Incidentally what is a traveler like you doing in my country?"

"Nothing strange your majesty, just visiting a friend of mine." he glanced at Kay when he said this

"I see, well if you don't have any definite goals in mind how about joining me and becoming my knight? You see I been looking for strong people to unify Britain…."

"HA! As if that would make you any different than the other powers, everyone has been looking for _more addition to their forces_." his gaze then narrowed while he spoke the next sentences "Entire towns and cities were razed just to find those….wild cards that you people are so desperately looking for, are you the same King Emiya, would you go through everything just to get what you want as well?" The man looked at him as if he was testing him

His mood darkened as well, he didn't really know what was going outside or what the other pieces were doing, he would probably need to set up some information or spy network in the future…

"No, I intend to minimize the casualties as much as possible and the fastest way to do that is to unify Britain under me. Until that happens everyone will be free to ravage these lands and people as much as they like, not even I as one of the _pieces_ know how much potential threat these pieces and wild cards posses, join me Bedivere, help me protect the weak from them."

"Well at least you seem better than the others I have encountered, but words are alone are not enough to protect the people…." he drew his sword out and pointed at him "….prove that you are worthy of being my liege and strong enough to protect the weak by defeating me!"

He threw Caliburn at Kay; it won't be useful for this battle. "Kay you will act as referee."

Kay just threw him a 'Huh' at this, no doubt still being confused on how the events escalated into this.

"Are you insulting me Lord Emiya, or perhaps you were planning on fighting me barehanded?" Bedivere said after seeing him discard Caliburn

He simply traced his trade mark weapons _Kanshou_ and _Bakuya_ "No, with these."

"So the rumours about you being a magician was true, though I doubt those weapons are better than the holy sword."

"Indeed, but these are my favourite blades, it would feel weird not to use them in a serious fight like this." Obviously the true reason was because these were the only blades that truly permitted his special sword style, something that would be crucial here if he hopes to defeat that technique.

Both of them got into battle stance, waiting for Kay to signal the match, who was still standing around dumbfounded.

"I don't know what is going on here, but if you guys want to fight then so be it." He raised his arm "Begin!" and brought it down.

Bedivere didn't hold back at all and instantly launched a blindingly fast strike that Emiya could only block because he was expecting it, 'Looks like he plans to finish this fast.'

He set up a weak point for him to take and he took it.

Emiya parried the blade away.

He set up another and he took it again.

Emiya deflected the blade again.

His strikes were way too fast, even with his reinforced eyes he couldn't see them coming, and he was only able to deflect them because he knew where he would strike next.

He deflected a few more blows from Bedivere and tried to go on offensive, he used Kanshou to strike him but was deflected by Bedivere's sword, he then tried to use the fact that his blade arm was still recovering to try and land a hit with Bakuya, but to his surprise his sword easily rose up again and deflected the blow.

Bedivere was leagues above Kay, unlike him he wasn't rash and inexperienced, there was a calm look to his face as he precisely deflected his strikes and attack back at him, he briefly wondered what this man had faced before he had come here.

Kay watched in wonder as his liege and friend clashed, these 2 were incredible, both of them were going at it way faster and stronger than when they had been facing against him, 'So this is what they are like when they are fighting seriously huh?'He watched as Lord Shirou dodged another thrust and tried to hit his friend only to slice a bit off from his hair.

Bedivere attacked three times in succession driving Emiya back enough that he could set up his stance. 'This is it, that is the insane move he used to defeat me earlier', he wondered how his king would beat it.

Emiya however didn't back down and choose to attack with both swords from a separate angle, forcing Bedivere to deflect both swords otherwise he would be hit, both Kanshou and Bakuya were now on the ground, but that didn't matter to him at all, he merely summoned another pair and used to draw blood from Bedivere who was still recovering after his strike.

Bedivere glared up at him and said "That wasn't fair you know, using magic in a sword fight, if this were a true sword fight you would have lost the moment you were disarmed."

"Nothing is fair in an actual fight Bedivere, sometimes you must abandon your chivalry and believes if you want to win otherwise you will have to weigh if your ideals are truly worth the loss and letting people die for it. If by abandoning my heroism I could save people then I would do it in a heartbeat. Chivalry itself won't win you battles; it's the want to win that will do it. So tell me knight, do you want your liege to be someone who abandons the pretense of chivalry so he can save others and win or someone who will let people die and lose battles for the sake of his pride?"

There was a long silence as Bedivere took in his words before he spoke out once more "During more normal times I would never accept a king like you, but with what Britain is facing now, an unconventional King might be able to do what others cannot."

He kneeled towards him and stabbed his sword into the ground

"So I Bedivere will accept you as my lord and liege, may you guide us through these dark times."

_Unknown to Emiya and everyone else…._

…_.an almost invisible crack formed in Caliburn._

_A small crack, but still a crack nonetheless._

...

Back at Wessex the pagan armies were getting read to move out once again, around 10000 men were gathered, several hill giants as well as some chimeras seemed to be in the ranks of the troops, the giants have been outfitted with massive armour, making them even stronger and were equipped with large axes and clubs so they can cause more damage. The troops were lining up to drink of the potion distributed by the chieftains.

It was a mixture they made under the instructions of Medea, drinking it would allow their troops to go on without sleeping and getting tired for some time, maximizing the effectiveness of the offensive.

One of the chieftains approached Medea who was channeling some magic at the moment.

"Your highness, a messenger has arrived and told us that the troops you sent ahead are in position."

"Excellent, rally the men then we will launch our strike." Medea said still concentrating on her magic

…

When the old shaman appeared before his people everyone has gone to silence.

"My Brethren!" said the shaman with his arms outstretched

Each pagan raised his weapon and did a battle cry in unison upon hearing their elder speak to them.

"Today is finally time to reclaim another one of our lands that should be rightfully ours; it is time to chase out the infidels and foreigners who have been plaguing our land!"

The group was getting more riled up and they started clapping their weapons together.

"Our Goddess will give use the edge we need for a victory, she will use a massive miracle to send our armies to enemy castle in the land of Dummonia, the fools won't even have an idea what hit them, and our vanguard that has been infiltrating their territories for weeks now will cut off any chance of reinforcements from their side, this will be a fast and efficient conquest that won't even last a day!"

The army cheered once more

"The assault will be personally be lead by the Blood Goddess herself." he gestured towards Meia who walked up to him

The crowd broke out into a thunderous cheer upon seeing her appearance.

"Now move out, our gods are with you!"

Medea opened a massive and wide portal that allowed even the hill giants to pass through it, and the army started marching through it enthusiastically. Normally such a large scale spell would be beyond ever her limits, but with direct power and energy source from the local ley line she could easily manage such spells.

…..

Volkrad loyal knight of King Mark was patrolling the domains of his king's castle despite the late hours, the reason for this was because they already had several assassination attempts on his liege this week, all of them were fortunately apprehended. They needed to be even more careful with the looming threat of the pagans and assassins they must remain vigilant.

He came to the western side of the castle walls where noticed a snoring guard who had fallen asleep and now was resting his head one of the castle blocks.

He shook the man up "Wake up you idiot, what are we going to do if another assassin slips in because you were sleeping?" asked Volkrad angrily

"I-I'm sorry sir, I will keep my eyes open." said the man saluting still appearing tired

"You do that soldier."

Volkrad went on to continue his patrols when he had noticed small lights in the distance, he came to a halt and tried to take in what it could be, only for the lights to keep growing and growing, some of them were approaching the castle, he now realized what they were.

_Torches_

"Sir what are those?" asked the soldier, now the lights were in the hundreds, and more and more kept lightning up.

"It's an enemy attack you blockhead! Go sound the alarm, I go and wake the king up!" Volkrad ordered as he sprinted away.

"R-Right!"

The soldier rang the bells, it echoed through the whole castle, signalling the upcoming attack; soon a block of hay was lit on fire in one of the towers, signalling it to the nearby castles and bastions that they would need reinforcements.

…

A nearby castle's captain saw the fire and readied his troops so he would be able to lend assistance; many of the soldiers just woke up from their sweet slumber so they were confused and tired.

"Sir, what's going on, what is the alarm for?"

"King Mark's castle is being attacked; we are requested to send assistance to him immediately."

After he said this, the seriousness of the situation immediately sank in for the soldiers; this was the wake-up call they needed.

Another soldier came forward and asked a question "But sir, how did the enemy breakthrough our defences, how are they so close to the capital?"

It was a good question, they been coordinating most of their forces to the eastern borders for a while in preparation for an attack, if they were here it either meant that they managed to break through their defences completely or that somehow they slipped by it.

"I don't know son, but now we should make haste or we will be too late, man your horses!" shouted the captain as the group went out of the castle.

But….

…..they didn't get far…..

Hails of arrows hit them the moment they left the castle, immediately taking down many of the unprepared soldiers.

"Ambush! To your defences' lads!" shouted the captain, trying to get a hold of the situation.

But even that for the naught as a giant wolf barreled into the captain, ending his life and sending the rest of the troops into panic, soon they were slaughtered by the pagan vanguard and they easily taken the now empty castle.

Everything was going as Medea planned so far.

Across the country, many pagans emerged from hiding from various forests and caves and began assaulting the now defenceless villages, they pillaged whatever they could get their hands on, killed the males, grabbed the children and woman with them and torched down the churches. This was going all over Dummonia….

…..

The castle was now fully under siege, the pagans were fielding their siege weapons and trying to take over the castle, while the guards desperately tried to shoot at them with whatever they could get their hands on.

Meanwhile Volkrad was now arguing with the fully armoured and battle ready King Mark, who was reluctant to leave his men.

"My King we must leave, this castle stands no chance against the current enemy numbers, most of our forces are still in the borders, please reconsider King, your men are dying to get you some time to escape!"

King Mark closed his eyes, considering his words, they were sound, and he knew that they stood no chance at their current strength, but he still didn't like to leave his men behind…

"Very well, we shall escape through the secret tunnels then request aid from Cornwall."

He moved to one of his closets and rummaged through his belongings, searching for something.

"My lord, what are you doing, you said we were going to escape!?"

"Be silent Volkrad, I'm searching for something…..aah there it is!" he emerged with what would appear to be some sort of crystal

"What is that sir?" asked Volkrad

To this King Mark, just threw it against the wall with all of his force behind it, shattering the crystal.

"That was a device given to me by Cornwall's wizard, Merlin; he had anticipated this happening so he had given me some insurance."

Volkrad, King Mark and 35 of his best men left through the secret tunnels of his castle.

The castles walls still held their defences for a while, but then something large approached them, that caused the earth to tremble. It was a 10 meter tall armoured Giant, the defenders watched in horror as it roared and raised its mighty axe, this was the last thing they had seen…..

…..

Emiya, Kay and Bedivere were walking in the streets after their little duel.

"So tell me Bedivere, what's the situation like in the other parts of Britain? Most news don't really reach this far." Which was true, without conveniences like the internet or the mobile phone, it could take months for some information to reach certain areas, so he tried to get some information out of Bedivere.

"Let, see I'm sure you already heard about the pagan tribes of the south, seeing how close they are to you, but are you aware that they capture innocent children and woman, for their purposes and subject the regions controlled by them to strange rituals and ceremonies? I gotten close enough to one of them to know what they are like, human sacrifice, cannibalism, rape, it is a really disgusting what these barbarians are doing."

Emiya felt angered at this and sort of responsible as well, if _pieces_ like him didn't have to play this wicked game, wild cards like Medea wouldn't be here torturing innocent people, 'I will need to eliminate her as soon as I can.'

Bedivere noted the anger of Shirou and continued "Besides that there are the upcoming powers of the north, namely Transylvania and Babylon, they are both very large Kingdoms with powerful tyrannical rulers, due to how close they are to each other it is inevitable that they will end up in a conflict, aside from this, I don't know much about them as I haven't traveled near the area."

Transylvania to the north, that is most likely the vampire's territory that Yukari was talking about, he would have chuckled at the cheesy name if it weren't for the fact that he just caught up with the second name.

Babylon….

Surely there is no way that it would be HIM? Even his luck wasn't that bad…..

Who was he kidding, his luck was so terrible that Alaya most likely put Gilgamesh here to just torment him; still he hoped it wasn't him, as there were many Babylonian rulers other than him.

"Is something the matter, your majesty? Your face suddenly looks pale." asked Kay somewhat concerned.

"I'm fine, please continue Bedivere."

"Alright, the areas in the heart of Britain seem to be plagued by a dead apostle problem, which is weird, since apostles are much rarer in Britain than on the continent as vampires are vulnerable to flowing water, their numbers seems to be increasing and nobody bothers to eliminate them since everyone is busy with fighting each other and arming themselves."

Great now he will have to potentially face an apostle infestation in the future, at least he was very familiar with that.

"To the South West, the fort of Gloucester and the areas surrounding it have gone completely silent, no one wanders out from the roads leading to it, and people approaching feel overwhelming fear that forces them to leave. I tried approaching it myself to investigate the rumours, but after managing to muster my courage and venture a few hours into the territories, the strange anomalies increased."

"I kept hearing whispers, telling me that I will die and see dark things in my vision that were not actually there, I bolted out of that place as fast as I can, when I thought I saw myself…..with an arm missing looking right back at me, it might be cowardly for a knight, but that place is really cursed. Even the pagans leave it alone."

"Sounds like a really strong bounded field, although I have never heard of one used at such a large scale…."

"You seem more knowledgeable than me in this matter; perhaps you should discuss it with your court wizard?"

'Yeah that seems like a good idea, Merlin will most likely be able to do something about…..'

Emiya stopped his musings when he had caught sight of something that shouldn't belong in this era

"There is one more country that I must inform you about, and this one is a place I spent plenty of time in myself as well, I can safely say that it is the strangest area you can find in the land…" Bedivere went on without noticing that Emiya was no longer paying attention to him, but at the target in front of him.

It was a brown cloaked figure, but that wasn't the usual thing about the person, it was the thing that was resting on its back…

….it was a claymore.

Claymores weren't invented until the 13-14th century, so there was no way it should be found in the current timeline. Which obviously left him with the conclusion that this was most likely someone who wasn't from this time, a _wild card_. He had no idea if he was perhaps an enemy spy or just some poor fool who was plunged into this world and now walking around aimlessly.

Whatever situation he might be in, it was not a person that he could just look away from. He ignored Bedivere who was now talking about some 'giant walls' and proceeded to grab the shoulder of the person ahead of him and turn him around.

The figure who was no identified as a girl looked at him in surprise, and now he understood why she wore that cloak, her eyes were animalistic and glowing with a bright yellow colour, her skin was pale and he was positive that she had fangs.

He immediately jumped back and armed himself; Kay and Bedivere quickly noticed the situation and armed themselves as well.

The girl rested her hands on her huge claymore, ready to draw it out at a moments notice; they were gathering a crowd now due to all the noise they made. The 4 of them entered a stare match unsure what to do, when the sound of horse hooves filled the area, it was Saber. She used this momentary distraction to escape at a blinding speed. Kay tried to go after her, but Emiya put a hand on his shoulders, realizing that whatever reason Saber was here, must be important.

"Shirou, Merlin says that our neighbour, Dummonia has been overrun by the pagan forces, King Mark is currently fleeing into our lands and requesting assistance. What are your orders?"

'Damn Medea is making her move, how the hell did she conquer Dummonia so fast?'

"We will assist them of course, send word to the captains to ready the army and march forward, Arthur and Kay, gather your best men on horse and come meet me outside, we will be going ahead." If they waited until the whole army got ready, it will most likely be too late.

Both of them saluted and went to gather the troops, while Emiya and Bedivere readied themselves as well.

…

The sun was visibly up and a pack of wolf riders could be seen chasing a group of men who were running away on horse, among the riders were Meia Bloodroad and Sasaki Kojirou. Meia was visibly annoyed, since the sun was now sadly up and scorching her fair skin, as well as draining away some of her vampiric powers.

Sasaki approached her and said "So how about we play our usual game Meia-chan, let's see which one of us can defeat the enemy king first."

She smiled at this "All right, you might just have the handicap you need to beat me this time, fufu."

The horses were now getting tired after the long chase and visibly slowing, while the giant wolves didn't feel any bit exhausted, soon they overtook the group and attacked them, King Mark fell of from his horse at the assault and the rest of the party was forced to hole up and defend him.

They formed up a shield wall with their spears outstretched around the king, this has deteriorated most of the pagans from attacking, but not Meia, she gladly charged her wolf into the spear wall, the wolf instantly died as the lance pierced it's heart, Meia jumped and used the blood of the wolf to create a huge scythe, which she used to reap the heads of several men. The defenders watched in horror as their comrades' heads fell to the ground and the rest of the riders used this brief hole to charge into them as well.

They tried to hold their ground, but against such an onslaught of powerful creatures and the relentless assault of the fanatical pagans they were quickly losing their numbers. They were reduced 3 knights, Volkrad and King Mark himself.

Volkrad used his large body to shield his king from the oncoming strikes, he was currently keeping Sasaki at bay, but he didn't know how much longer he can keep it up. He couldn't strike back at all, given the distance between them and how his enemy was using a longer weapon, as well as due to the fast nature of his strikes, if he dropped his shield for a moment, he would be dead, that was the only thing keeping him alive, but even that was crumbling. The man who was swinging that large blade with such ease was super human, he never seen anyone use a sword so well, he briefly wondered if it would be _all right_ to die to such an opponent.

His shield broke down at the barrage from Sasaki, and he quickly followed up his strikes, ending Volkrad's life.

"Run, my king." he said with his last breath, his final thoughts were spent on being able to die for his king and against a strong opponent.

"Looks like I'm going to win again, Samurai." Meia charged forwarding, using the opportunity Sasaki created, she formed her scythe into a massive red spear and lunged herself at King Mark.

The spear was almost about to collide with him, when a metallic sound round rang out as her strike was blocked by Emiya wielding Caliburn, he used his superhuman self-reinforcement to get here as fast as he could, Bedivere was already following him, with Kay and Arthur behind leading a group of knights on horse.

They slammed into the wolf riders as they went to help their King, Kay almost managed to reach him, but was intercepted by Sasaki.

"You look like a suitable opponent, care for a little duel?" asked Sasaki, already launching his lightning fast strikes at him.

Emiya was still in trouble, the girl was a lot stronger than he had expected, and it took all of his strength not to fall back when he blocked her strike.

The girl smiled at him with a predatory expression on her face "Oh reinforcements? Good, good, I like it if it's more challenging."

She jumped back to gain some distance, then set her spear into a downwards striking position and lunged at Emiya. He noted that the strike wasn't coming at the opening he had created, she was just ignoring it and was trying to ram the spear through him, Emiya was forced to parry it with Caliburn once again, which the girl only smiled at, her eyes glowed red for a moment and her spear _shifted and changed_ at an incredible pace, stabbing through Emiya's shoulder, whose mind was still just catching up onto what happened.

While her spear was piercing Emiya, she used her ability to gather blood directly from his body into her spear, extending its reach and using the remaining momentum to pierce King Mark in the chest, who was standing behind Emiya.

Everyone watched as both of them were impaled on the long red lance, Arthur was already rushing to his side, using prana burst to slaughter anyone in her way. Kay was still too occupied with Sasaki to do anything, and Bedivere was dismembering the remaining wolf riders.

A victorious smile came across Meia's face as she pulled out her spear and readied herself to engage the incoming Saber.

"Come my enemy, I shall show you a magnificent dance of blood!" she declared as she morphed her spear into a sword.

….

**Author Notes: I added around 1k extra lines in chapter 3 from the part where Remilia appears, since I was dissatisfied with how short it was.**

**For Bedivere's ability, my research showed that the only notable skill he had was that he was very skilled with the sword and that he was very fast, so I drew inspiration for his skills from Assassin, who was also very fast and very skilled with the sword, sorry if it feels a bit cheap.**

**Next Chapter we will finish the battle, have some talk with Merlin and some revelations about Caliburn and prepare for the incoming forces of Medea.**


	5. Chapter 5

**I do not claim ownership over any of the characters, locations or terminology appearing in this fanfic except for those of my own creations, everything belongs to their respective owners.**

**Chapter 5: Bloody Cross and the retreat of the Emperor**

Arthuria watched in horror as the girl caught her king off guard and pierced him through with that spear of hers.

Her body immediately dashed towards Shirou, she wouldn't let her liege and the man who will take the fate of Britain into his hands die like this, to let one's liege die before them would be the ultimate failure for a knight.

She rammed her way through the pagans, knocking aside even a giant wolf in her wake, though she was too busy to notice it. Her eyes traced the appearance of the enemy, it looked no older than a child, but she had seen what she done and is capable of, she won't treat her like one as she is already aware that she is just a monster in human skin, the vicious look on her face as she awaited her charge only served to reinforce this fact.

She brought down her sword in a horizontal slash against the girl with the full force of her charge behind it, despite the girls small frame she easily blocked it, but Saber didn't stop with this, she spun around with an extreme amounts of speed and released a large amounts of magical energy from her hands which propelled her swords towards Meia.

She attempted to block the strike with her blood blade, but it was easily broken through by Saber's reinforced attack, the only thing that saved her hand from being severed, was her quick intuition and reflex which forced her to jump back the moment her sword was destroyed.

Meia's eyes quickly widened when she noticed that Arthuria had already closed the gap and was right in front of her about to launch a downwards strike. She had no choice but to use a large amount of her own blood supply to create a shield of blood capable of blocking the attack, however even despite that the shield could not stand Saber's powerful blow and shattered, knocking Meia back with it.

They engaged once more, she attacked Meia who didn't field her sword this time, instead she gathered blood onto her hand and solidified it, creating a gauntlet of blood, she simply punched the sword that was coming from he, the sword shattered from the combination of the massive amounts of force Saber was driving it and from hitting a hard object that was Meia's hand. Saber wasn't bothered by the loss of her weapon, and instead released prana from her other hand, driving her fist into Meia's side.

_Prana burst – that was the skill Saber was using to obliterate her opponent to such a degree, it was the ability to direct and release prana to her body parts increasing her speed by a vast amount, normal humans would run out of reserves quickly after utilizing this skill a few times, but thanks to Saber's inhumanly large prana capacity, she could base her entire fighting style on this ability._

Arthuria widened the distance between them and went to retrieve a nearby sword.

Meia got up and stood proud, despite only being manhandled so far her smile was even wider than before, her cheeks were also furiously blushing.

"Good, very gooood, if it's someone like you…"

Her eyes glowed with an unnatural red colour, as she remade her huge spear once again, blood flowed to her from the nearby corpses of both pagans and knights, they drifted into the air around her and formed orbs and circles of blood, 3 orbs and 3 circles in total, they seemed to be circulating around her.

"…..I might just go all out!"

She went into a downward spear striking position again, she pulled her weapon slightly back and launched herself towards Saber, she expected that she would try to stab her with that spear of hers, but instead one of the orbs floated in front of her spear's tip and she hit it with all of her might, sending it flying towards Saber.

She managed to block the orb with her sword, but she got distracted from the fact that Meia was still charging towards her even after hitting the orb with spear in hand, her spear aimed towards the orb, and it _passed right through it_ allowing her to draw blood from Saber's cheek with her lance. Arthuria tumbled back as the remaining 2 orbs slammed into her sides with such force that they almost broke her ribs.

Arthuria groaned in pain and put up a defensive posture, she noticed that the orbs resumed floating around her enemy, Meia momentarily dropped her guard as she brought up the spear to her face, she held out her tongue and licked the blood that was drawn from her.

A look of utter ecstasy filled her face as she did so.

"Le-Let's enjoy this to the fullest." she said with her cheeks growing even brighter as she did so

…

'Damn, this is worse than when I practice against Bedivere, how the hell is this guy so fast?' These were the thoughts of Kay who was currently fending of the barrage of assaults from Sasaki. 'What the hell did I do to get into such a ridiculously unfair match? I mean just look at this, his blade is way too large to be called a sword anymore, and he was easily swinging it with 1 hand, he is faster than me and has larger reach than me, how the hell am I supposed to fight against this guy?'

He deflected another string of strikes that were cut in a beautiful arc towards him with his trusty shield, "Damn, If only I could have the opportunity to strike back.'

…..

Arthuria growled out in pain as another of those slammed into her, it was hard to defend herself due to the fact that she had to watch out for the 3 orbs and the spear. 'If I can't defend, perhaps I should go on the offensive."

She collected prana in her legs and launched herself at Meia once more, she wasn't fast enough to dodge her…

….but that wasn't needed, the sound of metal hitting something hard rang out as Arthuria's sword was blocked by one of those floating circular devices that kept orbiting around Meia, it cracked under the pressure of her swing, but didn't break.

'I will just have to hit it more then' she already launched the next blindly fast attack, and once again her blow was deflected by the circle of blood once again, to her surprise it didn't break under her second strike….

….no, she realized that it wasn't the same circle, her enemy had switched it with one of the other 2 before her attack launched.

_Clan Clang Clang_

The sound of her sword hitting the circles rang out, but Meia's defence was still standing, she realized now what was happening, every time she damaged one of her shields, another switched with it's place and then she used the blood of the nearby dead to repair the damaged ones, she hated to admit it, but she couldn't penetrate this defense.

"Are you done? Looks like not even you are strong enough to break through this, well it's time to get this over with then…" she said slightly disappointed and took her stance once again.

This time she sent the 3 balls at once at her, Saber closed her eyes and concentrated, she had remarkable instincts, so if she couldn't track their movements, she would just respond to what her senses are telling her.

The balls approached, she calmly deflected one, and then used prana burst to redirect the second one into the final third, successfully defending against all 3 for the first time. Her instincts told her that something longer was approaching, 'the spear!'

She pushed herself over the limit to block the fourth attack…

…..but it hit her anyway as Meia's spear curved in a strange angle, allowing her to bypass Saber's defenses and pierce her abdomen.

Blood started spilling out of her armour.

She felt hazy from the pain, but grasped the lance piercing her, trying to pull it out, but it was in vain as she didn't have any strength left.

"Well it was fun while it lasted, but all good things must come to an end, I shall enjoy feasting on you."

…..

'_Where am I?'_

He was in a delirious state after having most of his blood drained from him, and the sounds of battle only served to confuse him further.

'_I remember that I must save someone…..but whom?' _

He looked down and touched his shoulder and looked confused at the fingers that were now painted red

Red

_Red_

Blood

_Blood_

"Eh? Why am I bleeding?" he said out loud

He did a structural analysis on himself to see where the blood was coming from

_No damage found_

'_Whose blood is this then?'_

_Someone might be dying_

_Must Help_

He crawled around a bit and came across a corpse that was lying behind him, he put his hands on him and shook him "Hey wake up! Don't die on me!" shouted in a lucid state

_Pulse not found_

_Dead_

'You were supposed to save him, you know. What kind of hero are you if you can't even save one person?' a feminine voice asked the question in his head

"I…"

_static_

Memories of a certain fire filled his head as he remembered how he had desperately clung onto survival and ignored all those who were looking for help

_crack _

Another vision filled his head as he remembered how even after struggling to save Ilya so much, she still ended up dying.

Yes, another soul he wasn't able to save, another mark on his long list of sins that he will never atone for.

_buzz_

Memories of all of his mistakes came to him, each of it tearing his soul apart as he remembered it…..

_static_

….then came the endlessly long memories of his deeds after death

"…..I' am not worthy of being called a hero…"

_Emiya Shirou broke down and darkness of his sins surrounded him._

_Then a voice came, shining through the darkness as if it were light itself_

"Tell me Emiya Shirou, what are you then?"

"What am I…."

A field of blades came to mind, an endless amount of swords

_The annoying buzz of a radio on the wrong frequency filled his ears._

"**I'am a sword" **he said it mechanically

"Good and tell me, what kind of sword are you?"

"**A….sword….that…protects." **

"And who is it that you need to protect?"

The darkness left him as he came back to reality

He was still on the battlefield; he looked around and saw someone important to him impaled on a red spear.

_Thump Thump_

"_**Saber**_**…"**

The memory of that fateful night filled him where Saber took the full blow of Hercules and almost had her stomach slashed open.

_Thump Thump_

He could hear the sound of his heart beating in his ears; he mustered all of his strength to get himself up despite the pain trying to stop him…

_A weapon…._

_Yes he would need a weapon to protect Saber, his eyes come across a golden sword, and he took it without hesitation._

…..

Meia was about to sink her fangs into Saber's throat, when something broke through her shield; she was almost cut up by a flash of golden light, only to dodge it in the last minute.

She looked at her wannabe aggressor and let her jaw drop, before him was a man almost crumbling, and he should damn right be crumbling because, she was fairly certain that she had drained out all most all of his blood. His face lost all complexion and he looked like he could barely stand, but he still brandished the golden blade against her.

She narrowed her eyes "You…..how are you still moving….."

Her question wasn't answered and instead she received another strike that broke her second shield.

'How is he moving like that in that state? He is not normal…..'

_Crack_

The third shield was broken by the golden blade as well

'He shouldn't be able to break through my shields! His strikes are not as strong as the girl's, what is going on?'

A flashing golden light came at her once again, but she dodged it.

"I see, that sword of yours is special isn't it?"

She asked but got no response again, the speed of her enemy increased as he launched several strikes at her, all ended being evaded. She noted that her opponent was barely conscious and only fighting her on instinct.

"Very well, I shall take you on."

…..

_Not enough_

_Must go faster than this_

He flooded more prana into his body, increasing his speed and strength.

He launched several more strikes at the apostle. Each time she parried it with a weapon or a makeshift shield, and each time it was broken by the holy sword.

"You are getting annoying, die!" The girl in front of him said and stabbed something red into where his heart should be, he didn't even bother to flinch in pain and just continued his already launched attack, grazing the cheek of the vampire.

Only now he gazed down to see a red sword etched into him

_Damage sustained_

_Irrelevant_

_The broken parts will be healed_

He casually pulled out the red sword and tossed it aside.

"You….."

And continued with the onslaught, his sword shining even brighter than before

buzz

A distant memory, buried into the far reaches of his consciousness came to him; it was a dream that he had a long time ago when he was only a boy, thrown into a deadly war.

It was a vision of Saber being fully armoured with his army standing behind her, her soft tender hands resting on the holy blade that was stabbed into the ground, looking into the distance with a solemn expression on her face.

"Our King is the God of War."

"He is constantly in the vanguard and knows no defeat."

"There are none who can get in King Arthur's ways."

"His fearlessness has never waned since he pulled out the holy sword!"

"The King never grows old!"

"He is the incarnation of a dragon!"

Said the troops that were behind her

The memory faded and his senses came back to the battlefield, he had noticed that the wound in his chest has already healed.

He gazed down on the golden sword.

_static_

_Healing properties similar to Avalon_

'That's right; King Arthur was invincible when wielding this word…and now it belongs to me.'

Emiya willed his body to move once more and attacked the apostle who was frantically trying to defend herself, but was failing to do so, because everything she made was easily broken under the touch of Caliburn. She sent her orbs towards the red man, but now that his reactions and speed are starting to go back to his normal even those were destroyed.

_More_

_I have to go stronger than this_

"_**I'am the bone of my sword."**_ he muttered the first line of the aria as dozen blades were created and launched at a blindingly fast speed at Meia, she barely managed to avoid them, having to resort to blocking a few of them with a shield, unlike Caliburn they couldn't break through.

_More_

Twice the number of the previous swords appeared, he launched himself forward and broke down Meia's shield and launched the swords towards her, she could no longer defend herself, and her side was torn apart as a sword went through her.

"Graagh!" she cried out uncomfortable at the pain, despite being old and powerful, she wasn't used to pain since she was rarely hit. She clutched her side and gazed at the now brightly shining sun in anger.

'Damn you, if it were night I would never have to worry about a wound like this…' annoyed at her weakened regeneration she took the blood from the nearby corpses and repaired her damaged body.

"This farce has gone on for long enough." the girl said as she resummoned her favoured spear

Instead of attacking Emiya head on, she simply stabbed it into the ground and a red bolt coming from below impaled the former counter guardian. She summoned another spear and charged at him.

Emiya had no way to dodge as he was still impaled by the other spear, so he simply brought up Caliburn and use it to deflect the blow. But the spear twirled again and she did the same move again that injured him previously.

Stab, it entered through him

Stab, Meia pulled her spear out and stabbed him again

Stab Stab Stab, the girl was poking holes into him everywhere at a blindly fast speed, she knew that he could survive having his heart stabbed, so there was no need to hold back, Emiya was now bleeding everywhere, his whole body having been wounded and painted red.

….

Kay, Arthuria and Bedivere all watched as their lord was being killed but couldn't do anything.

Slash

Bedivere decapitated another of the giant wolves, only a few more remained and he could go to help his liege. "Damn where the hell are the reinforcements?" he cursed

Kay tried to go on the offensive for once, but his blow was deflected and was immediately pushed back by the powerful strikes of Sasaki.

"Get out of my way." He looked back to where his king was being punctured, which caused him to almost miss the coming blow that was aimed at his temple.

"Now now, don't let you attention wander or you will lose your head."

Kay only growled at the man as he tried to strike him once more.

Arthuria struggled to get up, but her wounds didn't let her, she pressed her hands and her stomach, trying to prevent more blood loss. She groaned as she tried to get up, but to no avail.

'I have to help Shirou…..I can't let him die like this.'

…..

It hurt

It hurt like hell as he was tormented by the unrelenting spear strikes, his whole body was aching so much that he was about to pass out…..

'No…I cannot….if I lose…the others will be in danger…' Thinking about the potential threat to his companions has managed to keep him awake

"_**Steel….is my body**_…"

"…_**And fire is my blood"**_ he managed to utter the words

The spear came again, but instead of piercing his flesh, a metallic clang rang out that knocked the strike back.

"Huh?" she looked confused before a fist covered in blades collided with face, tearing her frail skin. She looked at the man in front of her and the sight of the man almost made her vomit. Previously were her spear tore his body and red flesh showed, now were countless small blades knitting his body back together.

"…Monster." this wasn't a human she thought, it was abnormal, not even Medea's chimeras were this unnatural.

_Apostles, they are capable of regenerating even the gravest wounds._

_Conventional weapons won't work on them._

_This means I will have to look through unlimited blade works for a weapon capable of nullifying their healing factor._

3 weapons come to his rattled mind.

Harpe – the immortal slaying scythe used by Perseus to kill the gorgon Medusa

Gae Bolg – Barbed Spear of Impaling Death, capable of always piercing the heart through reversal of casualty, no wounds inflicted by it may be healed

Gae Buidhe – Yellow Rose of Mortality, a spear that causes wounds that cannot be healed similar in nature that of Gae Bolg

Of course anything that would destroy the target's whole body at once would work as well.

….

'Calm down' she told herself 'This isn't the first time I faced abnormal enemies, I just need to keep my cool and I will win like always' she said trying to reassure herself and get her emotions back under control.

Then the air itself froze and no one could breath, sound itself has died as a red spear appeared in the hands of the white haired man, everyone stopped moving and was focused on the spear that represented death itself.

The air around it started to glow red as the man held it in a striking position, a pure killing intent was leaking everywhere.

Dread filled her as she was looking at the devilish lance, because she _knew_ that thing was meant to kill her.

She didn't understand why she was so afraid of a spear; she could just regenerate the wound even if it hit her. She wouldn't even need to regenerate it, all she would need to do is simply dodge the attacks and not get hit.

The man in front of her prepared himself and said a single word that was heard by everyone who was watching.

"_**Gae Bolg**_" he cast its true name.

'He is coming' she thought and reflexively entered a defensive stance.

_Drip_, something red and wet fell to the ground

_Drip Drip Drip_, a sound of something leaking could be heard.

She looked down to investigate.

'Huh?"

A large red object was sticking out of her, right where her heart should be

"Why is there a spear in me?" she asked out loud

Then the pain flooded her, excruciating pain that almost drove her mad, it felt as if a thousand iron thorns were piercing her whole body.

"Aaaagh!" she felt to her knees and vomited large amounts of blood, tears flowing from her eyes, from the pain and confusion. She brought her head back, and she had noticed that the man didn't move an inch and was still standing in the same place as before.

"What the hell did you do?" She glared angrily as she pulled out the spear

"Graagh" more blood flowed out as the weapon left her and the aches only increased, 'I need to ….fix myself, blood, need more blood.'

She drained even more blood from the corpses, and as the blood flowed into her body she gave a surprised expression.

"I can't heal it, why can't I heal it?" she couldn't close the wound for some reason, nor was she left any opportunity to try again as her body was pierced by several flying objects that looked like scythes. She was pinned to the ground with them and couldn't move at all, both of her arms have been hit and another went through her stomach.

She gravely noted that the man in red approached her slowly, like an incoming reaper.

…

"Meia-chan!" Sasaki roared as he looked how his partner and friend was on the verge being killed, he was brought back to his duel when his cheek was briefly cut by the blade of his enemy. He noticed that his opponent was looking at him with a smug expression.

"Now what did you say about not paying attention? "

"You bastard….."

Kay went on the offensive once more to try and capitalize on his anger, but that was a mistake and soon he will learn why.

'I do not have time for playing around, I need to save Meia.'

Sasaki entered his stance as his opponent was approaching; he held her katana with 2 of his hands in a horizontal position.

"_**Secret Technique: Tsubame Gaeshi**_"

3 strikes hit Kay instantly who was unable to defend against them due to his rash behaviour, they cut through his armour and he fell to the ground.

"Damn and even a move like that…." he muttered this out as he passed out.

Sasaki darted towards Shirou, with his katana already readied, but he was interrupted when a blur of steel entered his view and was forced to parry the incoming attack.

'The other knight who was fighting with the wolves' he looked around and sadly noted that everyone except him and Meia was already defeated 'Damn'

"Sorry, but I can't allow you to interfere with my liege's duel." the braided knight stated as if it were a matter of fact.

Sasaki didn't bother commenting this time and instead launched his slashed at him, but to his surprise he could easily parry it with his sword, which moved almost as fast as his own blows. Bedivere didn't wait for him to attack again and instead launched 2 instantaneous strikes that almost rivaled Sasaki's.

'Damn and now I get an opponent that can actually fight against me.' his gaze wandered to Meia and he noticed that the man was now holding his golden blade over her, ready to strike her down for good.

Sasaki was in a bad situation, if he didn't do anything Meia will most likely die, but if he would just try to go to her, he would most likely be sliced by the enemy knight, ending both of their lives.

So he compromised and hoped for a miracle that Meia would able to hold up somehow until he finished this knight.

'I'm sorry, Meia-chan.'

…

"_What do you want?_" a voice asked in her head

'I do not want to die' she thought this as he looked into the steel grey eyes of the tanned man

"_What do you want?" _the voice asked once more

'I want to live; I want to enjoy more battles.'

"Then embrace your heritage, it is the only way for you to get out now, claim the inheritance of the Bloodroads!"

'My inheritance…..'

"That's right; everything is yours to do as you wish."

"Release it." she heard the noise of a cage being banged, something desperately wanting to get out

"Open it." the banging became even louder

"Kill everything, until nothing is left in your wake but a field of blood!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" she shrieked in a horrifying voice, but soon the shriek turned into a maniacal laughter, Emiya and the weapons piercing her were knocked away.

Her eyes became completely dark red, her hair lost her golden blond colour and now was stricken with a sickening ghostly white colour, and her whole body was covered with glowing stigmata like wounds.

"Protect the king, kill the demon!" the remainder of the troops launched themselves at Bloodroad now that they were done with the pagans.

"**Do not oppose me; your blood will disperse like sand.**" It wasn't a threat, just a statement of fact, she raised her right hand and the soldiers dissolved into nothing but tiny particles of blood.

"**I'll show you what happens to those who oppose the Monarch of Blood**."

She held both of her arms open "_**BLOODY CROSS!"**_

The skies itself have darkened at her word.

Her stigmata were now glowing with a crimson red colour

Every nearby corpse was converted into nothing more but blood and began to gather in one place, they converged and converged, until they formed into the shape of a large blood red cross.

She focused herself and Arthuria, Kay, Bedivere and Emiya all crumbled to their knees as every ounce of blood started to leave their bodies and flow into the giant cross.

"**Sasaki, go tell the old witch that our goal has been accomplished here**." She spoke in a tone that allowed no refusal

"Meia…" Sasaki tried to reach out to her

"**GO...I don't want you to see what I'm about to do**."

Sasaki reluctantly nodded and left where the pagan army was located.

She went up to the now barely unconscious Arthuria, brought her head up by the hair and licked her neck.

"**I' am going to enjoy playing with you.**" she said this as she was about to sink her fangs into her, but then a single well aimed arrow pierced her in the head.

"**Aaargh**!" of course the damage hardly mattered to her as it was done by a conventional weapon.

She noticed around a thousand men if not more stampeding towards her, 'Tse, so they still had additional reinforcements.'

"**Disappear**!" she waved her arm once and a barrage of blood shards shot towards incoming troops like some sort of bizarre machine gun from the red cross. Troops fell by the hundreds as they couldn't do anything against the incredibly fast bullets. Their screams filled the air and their blood stained the ground beneath them, but even that was soon sucked up, fed to fuel the giant cross.

…

Emiya was already capable of moving, as Caliburn restored his health at an astonishing rate, the blade glowed brightly as if it meant to tell him that he should use it.

He tried to scan it and find how it could be useful...

_static_

Conceptual weapon: Property Unidentifiable

...but failed

Nevertheless he got up and charged towards Meia with the holy sword brightly glowing in his hands, Meia was enjoying the slaughter of the troops too much to pay attention to what was happening around her.

He successfully stabbed the girl and light filled her body, the light hurt her way more than anything in this battle so far, the giant blood of cross cracked and fell apart as she lost her concentration.

"You….still….persist…?" She looked at him with the most hateful look she could muster

Emiya's mind for the first time in this battle, was finally clear, and spoke the words "Yes, it is time to end this meaningless slaughter…"

She grabbed him, her nails digging deep into his shoulders "You think that a pathetic mortal like you can kill me?"

For an answer Emiya pulled Caliburn out of her, then slashed her once more, but this time he said out the weapon's true name.

"_**Caliburn: Golden Sword of the Victorious**_"

A beam of light extended from the blade as it obliterated Meia, cutting apart even the darkness that was blackening the sky.

…..

Emiya proceeded to walk to his fallen comrades and touched them, transmitting some of Caliburn's healing capabilities onto their bodies, soon one by one they were stable enough to not be in any immediate danger.

But then they heard the accumulation of blood once again, and came out a small girl who was burdened with the price of defeat.

Her body was falling apart, tendons and muscles showing everywhere. She became too weak to keep her body together.

Her petite skin was being slowly burned away, wherever sunlight reached her. She became too weak to even protect herself from the hated sun.

His knights rose and drew out their weapons, but Emiya halted them by raising a hand. There was no point in further violence; this girl was already on prolonged time.

She struggled to reach him, her feet slowly crumbling away as she did so; he stepped forward and caught her before her legs gave away. She grabbed hold of his cloak, but didn't do anything more, she couldn't do anything more.

"I….wanted….to have so much…..more fun battles…" she weakly breathed out

"Battlefields are never fun, they are horrible things where people die and suffer." He said it to her like one would scold his child as he held her crumbling body in his arms

"…Tell me… your name….."

"My name is Emiya Shirou."

"Fufu….then Emiya Shirou, know that I…..Meia Bloodroad…..will not forget…..this disgrace…."

"For…..ruining….my….fun….you shall…..pay….dearly…" she turned to nothing more but ashes as she left this world with her final parting words.

…

A city was burning, and a girl clad in red was overseeing the destruction that the flames wrought with themselves from her palace, her hands resting on her strange red sword. This was Nero Claudius Augustus Germanicus, piece of the player Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg. Her last bastion has been under siege for weeks by the forces of Babylon, and looks like the enemy finally broke in, causing massive amounts of destruction to the beautiful buildings she had cultivated.

"Damn that gold armoured prick, I will make him pay for this, that's for sure."

"I Nero refuse to be defeated so easily."

"Indeed, it would be a shame to get out of this game at such an early phase." A black clothed, white haired and bearded old man with glowing red eyes appeared out from nowhere, his cane tapping the floor as he did so; this was the Wizard Marshal, Zelretch.

"So, how are you planning to get back into the game, when we lost all of our assets?"

"You should know it already old man; it's time to pay the city where all roads lead to a visit."

"Ohoho, I like where this is going, very well I shall help you out."

"I will show them...what it means to be a master the art of warfare."

He opened a portal and the two of them stepped through it.

…..

**AN: So this was the first real fight in this fanfic, please tell me if you have an issues or problems with the way I done it so I can improve.**

**On Arthuria being defeated: It only happened because she is still a complete novice here who lacks experience and her skills aren't honed as well, if she were in her prime, she would demolish Meia in a matter of seconds.**

**On Emiya: He was doing the whole fight while on the verge of passing out and bleeding out, so I tried to incorporate how the narrative in the visual novel told the fights whenever Shirou was in a similar state, and I noticed that it always sounded more mechanic or machine like during those times, so that is the reason for it.**

"**Example: Nine Lives Blade Work scene in the novel**

**Inheritance of battle technique, experience and physical strength from Archer.**

**Correction. Failed to read physical strength.**

**I will still be killed one blow"**

**Anyway I'm not sure how this one came out so comment on that too if you felt dissatisfied**

**Also I know that I promised some Merlin talk, but there is only so much that I can get into a chapter.**

**Next Chapter: We will have a Merlin talk, Sabotage Medea, prepare for an imminent battle and have Emiya molested by a loli.**

…**..**

**Answering reader questions: **

**No, the Saxon invasion won't occur, due to certain events that will happen in Europe that prevent that from happening, instead we will get a Roman invasion.**

**He will have to tell eventually, the first one will be Merlin since he will undoubtedly want more information ever since chapter 2 and Bedivere already more or less knows that something big and fishy is going on, just not exactly what.**


	6. Chapter 6

**I do not claim ownership over any of the characters, locations or terminology appearing in this fanfic except for those of my own creations, everything belongs to their respective owners.**

**Chapter 6**

Emiya Shirou was currently unconscious; he collapsed shortly after Meia perished in his hand. Several people were gathered near his body, discussing various matters.

"Calm yourself Arthur, Kay, he will be fine I promise, just let him rest."

"Then explain why did he suddenly collapse like that!?"

"I don't know yet, but he will be fine." Emiya was actually suffering from magic circuit overuse, but as mages in the age of the gods didn't depend on magic circuits that thought didn't cross Merlin's mind. Well that was only half the reason why he was unconscious, the other part had to do with being stabbed with a spear a dozen times, having ¾ of his blood drained, _twice_ and being forced to fight a powerful vampire under these conditions. Emiya was to put it simply, fucking tired.

"Yeah and how do you know that?" retorted Kay

To this Merlin pointed at the golden sword resting in Emiya's hands "It is the holy sword, as long as he wields it he is not going to die, as the sword blesses it's wielder with powerful regenerative abilities. This is also the reason why he survived all those things you told me about."

"You could have at least told us about it."

"I didn't really think that you would encounter something like a dead apostle when you headed out, besides even if I told you it wouldn't have changed anything."

Merlin started dragging them out of the room "Now now, the king needs to rest and you are disturbing him, we can continue talking outside if you wish." he went out himself as well and locked the door behind him.

….

Emiya was in pain all over his body, he suddenly felt something heavy drop on him, which he woke up to see what it was.

He slowly opened his eyes and took in the figure that was casually sitting on him.

It was a slender girl dressed in eastern design black clothing with golden patterns woven into the fabric, her shoulders were left open and she had separate pair of sleeves to cover her arms, she sported a red skirt on her lower parts. He continued his observations and he slowly started to realize that he was in a pretty bad situation.

_Unnatural light purple hair_

_Red eyes_

And on her back a pair of four shadowy black wings were resting

"Crap" he muttered out loud.

The girl smiled up to this as she held her slender fingers up to her lips "My, oh my, what's with that reaction? A pretty girl comes to wake you up during the night and you are acting all antsy…" the girl pouted in disappointment.

"Yeah I would be obviously a lot less worried if the said girl was actually human, so what do you want from me? If you wanted to kill me you would have already done it while I was sleeping."

"Hehe~! I took an interest in you, Emiya Shirou-san~ , so I came over to play!"

"Play, what do y-" he was cut off from finishing his sentence as the girl started unbuttoning his pants 'Oh hell no' he tried to get up and run away, but couldn't as his body was too exhausted to do so.

"I been watching your progress ever since the beginning, how you picked up the sword and how you easily defeated those who opposed you despite hardly having anybody support you in the noble circles, I watched how you slowly gathered allies to yourself, but what really won me over was how you managed to defeat Meia-chan, even though she was a three-star ranked demon."

"Oh, it seems that you are well equipped, I think we will be able to have some fun tonight!" She said this as she got out Emiya's weapon from his pants.

Emiya tried really hard to ignore what was happening to his lower parts and instead focused on gathering more information. "Meia-chan? You are addressing her quite casually, did you know her?"

"Oh yes I did indeed know her, she and I are actually from the same world and from the same faction, we worked together a few times, we both belong to a race called Asmodians(demons), of course unlike me she is a part of the nobility there." She answered while stroking his shaft with her gentle fingers. "It is quite a shame that you killed her; she wasn't really a bad girl just a little bloodthirsty, most people from my homeland would find it easier to use her rather than kill her, I was surprised that you didn't even try to talk with her and see if she would stop."

Emiya was overcome with a wave of guilt as he really hadn't tried to talk with Meia, but again he wasn't really in a situation where he could afford it.

"But enough about the depressing talk, I'll make you feel so good that you will forget about Meia-chan~ !" the girl removed her clothing, revealing her ample breasts and lowered her lower parts onto Emiya's sword. He notices that the girl was so wet that she was practically leaking.

He didn't quite know how he got into this situation, but he was sure that it was Yukari's fault.

***The following scenes were replaced with badly animated cgi dragons and dolphins, we apologize for the inconvenience***

"….Fufu, you came so much, was it that enjoyable for you Onii-chan~ ? the girl teased while getting dressed.

Emiya was about to fade into unconsciousness once again from being raped by some tomboyish loli for the last few hours, but even then he did not fail to hear the last words that came out of the girls mouth.

„Fufu, now the contract is sealed, we shall be together for a very long time~ !"

He felt a slow constant drain on his magic circuits, 'Not again' he thought as he finally passed out, wondering what kind of horrible deal he was forced to make this time.

...

The north-eastern areas to Wessex were in a commotion as their country was being invaded by another. The invading country bore the name of the _Holy Magic Sect_, led by the powerful mage, Magic Master Rune. They were a magic centered society where those who were capable of wielding magic and supernatural elements were regarded highly and enjoyed good standards, while those who were incapable of it were branded and shunned as barbarians.

Their technology and knowledge far exceeded those of the people that lived in these areas, they had an army of mage drones, fielded huge floating islands known as Toushin Toshi and their people were no longer humans of the flesh anymore, but men and women who have replaced their natural body parts with those of machines.

Tension was in the air, mostly because no one knew what was about to happen, The Magic Sect said they have only come to discuss something with their king and had no intentions of invading, yet the array of floating islands above them told a different story, a story that if negotiations go bad they will most likely resort to force, so the army was left waiting, hoping that everything would go all right.

Inside the king's castle the atmosphere was even stiller as everyone was waiting for the king's answer, he was put in a tough position where whatever option he chooses, both of them would end badly for him.

The king was flanked by several knights who were also sweating from the tension, the ambassador of the Holy Magic Sect was tapping her foot in impatience, it was a blond twin tailed girl with aqua blue eyes, she wore a black dress and white-golden tabard over it, her arms and legs were protect by a pair of armoured gauntlets and graves, she wielded a strange sword not found in this era that was emanating a blue light. Like the king she was also protected, her entourage consisted of four blue cloaked figures with extremely over-sized shoulders; they kept completely still, not even making any motion.

She finally lost her patience and spoke up "So what is your answer then, are you going to assist us or are you not?"

The King spoke up "Miss Rebecca, please understand what you are asking us would hardly be beneficial to us, no one is insane enough to attack the pagans of Wessex." he said this while wiping his sweat

"You dare to resist us? I'm quite sure you are aware that if you do not aid us willingly we can always just use force…." The girl was cut off when she heard the sound of steel being drawn.

_Gush_

Blood streamed out of the King's neck as his head was separated from his body by one of his own knights.

The rest of the troops were in shock at this blatant treachery, while the traitorous knight held up the head of the King and said "Support me as the future King of this country and I will gladly assist in your quest to conquer Wessex."

"What is your name, Sir Knight?" asked Rebecca

The steel-red knight removed her horned helmet and came out the face of a beautiful girl with emerald green eyes with a scruffy blonde hair ending in a rough ponytail, "The names Mordred." she answered in a charismatic voice.

"Mordred you bastard, how dare you turn on the king who gave you shelter!?" roared the troops as they charged her. She effortlessly swung her sword at them, ending all of their lives at once.

Several more men rushed into the hall, no doubt realizing that something bad happened, upon seeing the dead King and knights, they foolishly rushed at Rebecca who doesn't even bother to pay them any attention.

The sword is about to reach Rebecca, but it is blocked by one of the blue cloaked bodyguards, the sword slashes away its cowl revealing the terrifying skull with glowing blue eyes that was hiding under it.

'These are not _humans'_, they thought. Indeed these were the Autonomous Constructs known as Holy Shroud Tousho; they were created from the dead bodies of powerful mages and reinforced with biosteel so they could combat the enemies of mankind, and more importantly those who oppose the Holy Magic Sect. There were soulless beings that existed for the sole purpose of fulfilling the orders of the Sect; currently they were programmed to follow the words of Rebecca Silky, even though she wasn't technically a member of the Sect, just a wild card they took in due to her holy magic.

"You know the reason they cover those things is so they don't frighten the people." the girl stated casually

"Execute them." she declared, not even bothering to look at the soldiers whose death she has ordered.

"M-13 protocol, acknowledged." said the Tousho in unison as they used their holy magic to smite the guards into nothing but ash.

"Very well Mordred, it seems that you offer has been accepted, congratulations on your kingship." She said as she held one of her hands to her ear as if listening to something, and made an awkward face while doing so as she wasn't really sure if she should address her as King or Queen.

…

Emiya woke in the morning, his body still in pain, he wondered if last nights events really happened and the still present drain on his circuits confirms that yes, he was really raped by a loli. He most likely unwillingly made another deal with a demon that will doom him to some unknown fate. "Just my kind of luck…" grumbled Emiya.

He looked around the room and noticed that there were no signs of the girl at all, he wondered where she had gone, as he doubted that she would just run off like that after making a contract, even if he wished that would happen.

"Fufu, were you perhaps already missing me Onii-chan?" came out the tomboyish demon girl, seemingly from nowhere. Emiya was sure that she wasn't there before, 'Is it some kind of teleportation?' he thought.

"Ignoring the fact that you just appeared out of nowhere, who exactly are you and what kind contract did you force me to make?" asked Emiya in a serious tone

"My my, making a contract with someone you don't even know, that's quite an irresponsible thing to do onii-chan." The girl evaded the questions nonchalantly

Emiya glared daggers at her

"Fine~ If you really want to call me something, then just call me _Minasaki_, as for the contract, why does it matter to you, you wanted to gather more wild cards like me anyway, right? My reasons should be of little concern to you."

"The problem is that you probably involved me in some kind of horrible deal without my acceptance….well whatever arguing with someone like you is pointless as you seem to be the type that just does whatever she wants." Emiya stated slightly depressed as he was reminded of Ilya.

Emiya went out of the castle, trying to ignore the fact that Minasaki was following in his footsteps, 'Dammit I have more important things to do than dealing with a child, Medea might launch her attack any moment.'

He suddenly noticed the sight of Kay in bandages doing swings with his sword against invisible opponents.

He decided to approach him and while doing so he noted that Minasaki seems to have disappeared, 'It looks like she doesn't want to be seen.'

"Training, Kay?" he asked

"Yeah, during last battle I was damn disgrace, I couldn't even match my opponent when he was toying with me."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, you just weren't prepared."

"Stop your bullshit! All of you…are so much stronger than me, none of you were prepared as well yet you held your grounds better than I ever could."

"I must get stronger somehow, someday I will match my brother and Bedivere, just you watch, King."

"You do that Kay, you do that." he said as he began to leave, he didn't want to spend more time with him as they didn't really like each other.

But Kay called out to him once again "By the way, you never told me how you knew that Arthur was a girl during our match…"

"I know Arthur like the back of my hand." He boasted with the intent of making him annoyed.

"Oh yeah, then please do fucking enlighten me."

"Her real name is Arthuria Pendragon, she is the illegitimate child of Uther Pendragon, who had rejected her due to her gender, and she was given to the wizard Merlin who in turn gave her to Sir Ector at a very young age." Emiya said this as he left.

"The hell? So this means…..that we are not even true siblings….and she is royalty on all that?" his face was that of confusion and horror, but it soon turned into a face filled with rage

"Fuuuuuuck" roared Kay as he threw away his sword in anger, but Emiya already left by this point.

…..

Emiya entered a roman bathhouse to calm himself, as this area was originally under their control it is not surprising that such establishments would be found here.

He stripped naked and entered the water and began to relax, only to notice that there was another presence here.

"And what do you think you are doing?"

"Hehe, I came to wash your back of course." said Minasaki as she entered naked holding a towel in her hands.

"When will you stop bothering me, hush hush go away!" he said while waving his hands

"Booo, if you are going to be like that…I will just have to this~ " she said so while pressing her breasts against his back.

He tries to get her off, but only manages to touch her breast instead, which she responds to by groaning in pleasure "Kyaa, onii-chan if you wanted to do those kinds of things you should have asked."

Thus Emiya once again fails to get any rest.

…..

The sounds of Sasaki's cheek getting slapped by Medea echoes through the castle halls.

"Why the hell did you leave her alone!? Meia was a valuable asset to me and a useful general, she was worshiped by troops who gladly went to battle with her, do you realize how much losing her is going to set me back now? The morale is going to plummet and I will most likely have to go to the battlefields myself since we need to have someone with brains commanding the assault." She raged furiously at Sasaki.

Sasaki wanted to retort like he usually does, but he didn't because he knew that it was his fault that she had died, he had abandoned his friend in the midst of a battle and she died for it. All warriors live and the die by the sword and he knows this, but it still depressed him that the young looking girl died.

"I'm sorry, it is entirely my fault, please let me lead the assault in Meia's place." he slightly bowed down to the witch while asking this.

"You shall not, you lack the necessary qualities of a leader and the troops do not particularly care for you, I shall take command, I didn't think I would have to do it so soon, but I'm going to use my trump card." she stated with a menacing look

Sasaki's eyes widened at that "You mean to use _THAT!_?"

…..

Emiya came out of the bath with an even more tired look on his face, his eyes dead, his optimism gone.

"Shirou, I have come to retrieve you, the nobles want to have a strategy meeting on how to deal with the pagans and they have asked me to get you." Saber appeared out of nowhere

"Okay fine, lead the way."

They began walking and as they did so he came to notice that it seemed that something was on Saber's mind.

"If there is something wrong just tell me, Arthur, I will hear you out."

"Very well Shirou, I dislike the way you heedlessly rushed into danger and almost got killed as a result, you are the King now Shirou, the future of the country, you cannot sacrifice yourself like that, if you die everything falls, you are not expendable…..like am. I can understand trying to save King Mark as he is a king, but then you went and even put yourself in danger to save me as well, I'm grateful for that and I owe you my life, but you shouldn't have done that."

"Don't ever say that you expendable Arthur, a king is nothing without his people and don't you ever think otherwise. I saved you because I didn't want to lose you."

She was silent for a moment contemplating his view before answering with a nod "Your views are unusual, but I shall accept them."

They continued for a while, but it still seemed that something more was on her mind.

"What, is there still something else?" asked Emiya to break the awkward silence

"Yes, when you fought against the dead apostle you pulled out a red spear, seeing what it has done and what name you called out, that must have been the spear of Cú Chullain, the Hound of Ulster, right?"

'Crap, I forgot that the legend of Lancer predates even that of King Arthur's, well there is no helping it now.'

"Yes, that was his spear." he stated

"If it's not a secret may I ask how you gotten your hands on such a fabled weapon, and where did it go after you used it?" she asked curiously.

"You know that I' am a magus right? Well I' am quite different from most magi, I suck at most standard branches of magecraft and I'm only good at a few very specialized fields, those are _reinforcement, structural analysis and projection_."

He seen the confused look on Saber's face so he continued "Reinforcement allows me to pour prana into objects and strengthen their existence, those objects can be living things or inanimate objects, and the results vary depending on what I reinforce, if I reinforced a knife it would become harder to break and become sharper, if I reinforced my body, my bones would become stronger and I would gain better strength, speed and even higher reflexes."

"I see, so that's how you seemed to be faster as the battle went on."

"Yes, to continue structural analysis allows me to completely understand the makeup and design of any object just by looking at it, as for projection, it allows me to make copies of objects that I have seen, though I'm mostly specialized to swords and bladed weapons, I can make other things as well they would just cost me more prana, that is what I used to reproduce Gae Bolg." He of course left out the more complicated details like how he is actually using a higher version of projection known as _tracing_, which is completely unique to him thanks to his reality marble and how he cannot reproduce objects whose making he doesn't understand such as Ea.

"Is that how you were shooting swords out from the air as well? Magi seem to be much more varied than I thought."

"Yes, that is exactly how I done it, I can manifest my projections around a few meters away from myself."

"But based on what you said Shirou, you must have first seen Gae Bolg to reproduce it later, so where have you encountered it?"

'Damn, how am I supposed to explain this without talking about the Holy Grail War?'

"I actually met Cú Chullain himself. Do you remember how I suddenly appeared at the ceremony out of nowhere? Well I'm not actually from this timeline, I was just sent here." He said something that wasn't actually a lie.

"You…met the legendary Hero of Ulster?" Saber looked at him in a completely new light as he was someone stepped out of some epic legend, he imagined how her Lord might have fought against the Hound himself the rest of the way and by the time she was out of it, they already arrived at their destination, only then she had realized that she forgot to ask how he got into this timeline, she decided to put it off for now and ask about it later.

…

They entered the castles and Emiya could already hear the annoying nobles arguing themselves.

"How the hell are we supposed to fight an army of ten thousands when we are vastly inferior in numbers and most of our troops are incapable of action thanks to our foolish King's actions." snarled a noble

"Perhaps we should surrender; we clearly don't stand a chance, and maybe if we 'convert' the Pagan Queen will even let us keep our positions."

"There is no need to surrender when we still have a chance, besides I personally know what the Queen of Wessex is like and she wouldn't care for your demands one bit." a loud bang echoed through the room as Emiya entered the room, slamming the doors against the walls, Arthuria was still faithfully following behind him.

There were 9 nobles sitting in the room, there used to a lot more, but a large majority of them were killed and executed during the rebellion. Near the walls Sir Ector and Merlin could be seen observing the argument.

The moment he entered all the nobles put their hateful gaze on him.

"Ah looks like our King will finally be gracing out with his presence. So tell us oh mighty leader, how do you plan to deal with the upcoming attack." said one of them.

"Our number disadvantage won't matter if we fight underhanded methods and don't engage in direct combat. We can always lay traps for the enemy and use tactics to beat them, that and both me and Merlin are magi capable of annihilating thousands of troops with our magic, the troops would only need to pick up the leftovers."

"And now you are suggesting that we should degrade our honour and depend on your dubious magic? I would rather side with the Pagan Queen of Wessex." the man spat in front of Emiya

Before he could retort a spray of blood erupted from the man as something dark pierced his heart.

"Rebelling against your King is not permitted." Minasaki appeared out of nowhere, she tossed the corpse of the man that was impaled on her shadowy wings.

Saber was about to draw a sword at intruder, but Emiya stopped her.

"Shirou, do you know this girl?"

He didn't answer her and instead just asked the demon girl."What are you doing here Minasaki?" he said in a menacing voice.

"Making sure that Onii-chans meeting goes successful." she replied in her usual enthusiastic manner.

"By killing my subjects?"

"Please we both know very well that you don't need any of these nobles…." she gazed at the remaining nobles who were now stricken in fear wondering who would be the next victim "….besides that one clearly showed willingness to betray you, so I got rid of him for you."

"Minasaki don't you ever dare to kill anyone under my command, even if they are rebelling against me, now leave!"

"Hoh, you think you can order me around….." her eyes flared up for a second as she let out a small killing intent "….besides do you really want me to leave? If you do so then you might as well just surrender the country, as whatever strategy you come up with during this meeting will surely end in failure."

This caught Emiya's interest "What do you mean?"

"There is one little matter that hasn't crossed any of your minds, have you given any thought on how the pagans conquered Dummonia so fast?"

The nobles started murmuring at this to each other.

"…..True, Dummonia fell under the span of a single day, which is extremely unusual since King Mark has been actively preparing for a battle for weeks now, in any case they shouldn't have been able to conquer it so fast."

"Yes, they should have held way longer with the amount of defenders they had, instead they were already slaughtered by the time the news reached us."

"Maybe they somehow slipped past the defences or already had their men inside the country before the defences were even set up."

"So I'm assuming that you are here because you already know the reason for this, right?" asked Emiya

"Of course, darling~ "! The Witch of Wessex draws power from the ley lines in her territory, which makes her able to use a massive teleportation spell that allows her to move her troops instantaneously, so in the end it is pointless whatever plan you might come up with when the enemy can just appear everywhere."

"That is indeed troubling; in that case we would need to a find way to stop her from using this teleportation ability." Emiya said, his mind already racing on how to do so "There is always the possibility of simply destroying the areas surrounding the ley line itself, so she won't be able to draw power from it, although I have no idea how we would accomplish that from here."

Merlin stepped up "If I may my King, I would be able to destroy the landscape from here, by simply tapping into the local ley lines and use the energies gathered from there to send a huge destructive wave, to that location."

Emiya tried to think of some other possibilities as he knew what Merlin suggested would result in a lot of casualties as the areas weren't just inhabited by pagans, but the ones they hold as prisoners as well, but he couldn't think of any alternatives "Very well Merlin, then I shall be counting on you to take care of it." so he agreed to the choice that would probably condemn a thousand lives.

'You cannot save everyone and sometimes in order to save someone, sacrifices must be made.' This was one of the lessons he had learned on his path, he will simply choose his own people over theirs.

…..

To the northern areas of the territories ruled by the Holy Magic Sect walked a lone girl, she wore a simple brown cloak over her body that concealed most of her torso, to her lower parts she wore a combination of black hot pants and combat boots. Her features were like that of an albino, snow white hair, red eyes and pale skin.

Like so many others she was not from this world or time as well, however there was something to her that none of the others in her situation could say, she wasn't a player, a piece or a wild card, instead she got a position that was only hers. Simply to say she was Yukari Yakumo's personal agent here, set into the game with the order of maintaining the balance between factions.

It is her job to cull a faction when their numbers get too big and too fast or to cull the more problematic wild cards out of the game. Of course this was nothing more than a facade as this job was only created to torment her, she was far weaker than most of the pieces and many of the wild cards, so there was nothing she could actually do about any of the situations.

Which is why Babylon and Transylvania got so strong compared to the other factions, and now here was the worst offender that was an even bigger threat to the balance of this game than either of those 2 factions.

She came across a huge wall that was tall enough to obscure anything that would be going on the other side. The walls were impenetrable as they were made with technology that shouldn't exist in this timeline yet, and were outfitted with a special mana barrier that roasted anyone who would try to climb it.

So instead of trying to do either of those she just jumped high enough that she would reach the top of it. Now that she has gotten up to her location a view that shouldn't be found in this day and age came into her vision, massive buildings and towers of steel, signs of futuristic technology everywhere, artificial lightning's and even robots could be seen walking around the streets. Yes this was the number one danger to balance, the city state of Edessa.

'These are the times when I think that Yukari is an idiot, what kind of game master brings sci-fi technology into a setting like this?'

She started munching on a loaf of bread as she surveyed the area. This city was just a failure in Yukari's game design, she put several scientist type wild card characters all around Britain so they could be used to advance technology for various factions, except this idea went completely the opposite way when one of the scientists collected all the others and in a few months they formed this massive city.

They choose to settle here because this area wasn't inhabited by anything but a few remote villages, which are now all empty since they were moved to Edessa as part of the labour force that helped build it. After that the ruling body of Edessa decided to look for more wild cards to join their ranks, and since they had modern technology that many of them were so accustomed to, they gladly stayed here, because of this Edessa now has the highest number of wild cards, with the number of 12 in their possession (excluding the scientist's types.)

Of course they had capitalized on this fact and made a business of lending out their warriors to other countries in exchange for payment, sometimes even trading some of their technology with the locals, this way it quickly became a thriving city that received more and more visitors either from people who wished to live here or kings and nobles who wished for the services.

'Still what am I supposed to do with this? I can't just take out an entire city…' well she might have attempted to do it if they decided to actually participate in the game, but so far it seemed that the scientist run government was content in just sitting around and experimenting within their closed playground.

She concentrated and opened her internal storage that stored all available information regarding this game board. (Think of something similar as the servant screen in F/SN)

'Let's see who I should go after next.' she decided seeing she couldn't do anything about Edessa.

She noticed that there were several new updates that she hasn't looked at yet, she decided to open them and see what happened.

…

Parts where * appears were recently updated

**Name: **Meia Bloodroad

**Origin Wold:** T.A.B.A.

**Affiliation:** Medea, the pagans of Wessex

**Alignment:** Neutral Evil

**Notable Abilities:** Extreme Ability to Control and Manipulate Blood, Superhuman Strength and Reflexes, Partial Immortality

**Notable Skills: **Instead of specializing in one thing, Meia is a jack of all trades thanks to her ability. She can fight in a variety of ways and accustom herself to the situation and her powers can manifest in a lot of forms.

**Power Tier:** Tier 8: Category A

**Threat Level:** Medium – High, capable of eliminating most of the living pieces and wild cards if she so wishes by using her power, at awakened state entire armies may be annihilated by her.

***Current Status:** Partially destroyed, a small part of her still remains in Wessex

'Partially destroyed? What does that even mean? Well whatever looks like I won't have to kill myself anymore.'

…

**Name:** Minasaki

**Origin World:** T.A.B.A.

***Affiliation:** Emiya Shirou, Cornwall

**Alignment: **True Neutral

**Notable Abilities:** Limited Flight, Above Human Strength and Reflexes, Minor Shadow Manipulation

**Notable Skills: **Shadow Step: Ability to move through Shadows, she is so fast while doing this that it might seem like teleportation.

**Power Tier: **Tier 8: Category B

**Threat Level:** None

***Current Status:** Cornwall, Emiya's castle

…..

**Name:** Night of Wallachia

**True Name:** Zepia Eltnam Oberon

**Origin World:** Nasuverse

**Affiliation:** Himself

**Alignment:** Chaotic Evil

**Notable Abilities:** Vampiric Nature, Phenomenon: Doesn't truly exist, Immortal, Materialization of Rumours and Fears into physical form, Reality Marble and Magecraft

**Notable skills:** Can vary to a great extent, depending on what form he takes upon manifesting

**Power Tier:** Unknown, cannot be measured

**Threat Level:** Extremely High

***Current Status:** Unknown

'Looks like _TATARI_ went off the Radar again, well it's not like I would have gone after him in the first place.'

….

She came to one of the _pieces _and almost chocked on her loaf when reading the last detail.

**Name:** Nero Claudius Augustus Germanicus

***Current Status: **Europe, Rome

"The hell, looks like the Scarlet Devil's Player isn't the only one who is cheating, I swear these people are acting like some overgrown kids, not even being able to keep the rules they themselves set….."

_Danger_

She immediately dodged a projectile when her instincts flared up, she sees that one of the guards spotted her and tried to bring her down. 'I'm not really looking for a fight so I shall just leave for now.'

She jumped off the wall with as much ease as she jumped up and headed to the west, where a dead apostle infestation was plaguing the populace.

….

…It was a hill, not just any regular hill, the air itself was different here from other places, the flora and fauna were rich and the songs of nature penetrated the area, only the steps of a lone mage disturbed this peaceful landscape.

The wizard walked a few more steps before slamming his staff into the earth, he started to gather the mana in the air, which gathered to the tip of his staff and made it glow blue.

His eyes started to glow golden as he spoke dark words that seemed to taint the area itself "**Dipebyl, Dyjeoswof, Zosof, Xydhwyral, Tottaf, Xyydcyxix ofk Oztakiyz, E zittaf uai, aw tu ofpyzsalz, hdyozy dyfk ty uail haqyl!**"

"**E ethdaly af uail haqylz za E zwodd tou kyjozsosy swy dofkz ab tu yfyteyz eszydb!**"

Meanwhile at Wessex his words caused the earth to shake and change, disturbing the pagan festivities that were still going on. They immediately panicked, many of them started running for lives, others would seek shelter in the underground areas only to be crushed by the stones crumbling above them, and others seemed to be just content to pray to their gods.

"**Dys fafy ab tu yfyteyz xy zholyk, dys swyel peseyz xy plizwyk ifkyl swy qyerws ab ail haqyl! Lojory swy dofkz za swos tou faswefr rlaq swyly bal swy patefr setyz!"**

He continued his chant and the settlements of Wessex have been completely collapsed, the stone monuments and dwellings of the pagans were also in similar situations. A large group of people who were captured by the pagans could be seen running, yet even they were not spared from the destruction as the earth itself opened beneath their feet, swallowing them.

The destruction continued on for the next 25 minutes, and nothing but rubble and a pile of dead bodies remained in the area, he had made sure to rearrange the landscape itself so that ley line may never be used again.

…..

A green haired woman was alone walking in the place now filled with destruction, it was dead silent, every pagan that used to camp here was either dead or buried under the rubble, she escaped unscathed thanks to the fact that Medea's temple was fortified. She had decided to leave, so she had collected every artefact that the witch stored in her temple into a brown sack, there were a few rings, various charms and even a few wands in there, but what was the most unusual piece was a vial of blood that seemed to be constantly swirling as if it were alive.

She of course knew whose blood it was, she had seen it drawn out after all by the witch herself, although she had no idea what she would use it for, she decided to take it along with everything else, who knows what could be useful when she actually decides to play this game?

As she walked she looked through the now ruined land before her, this wasn't a normal earthquake that much was obvious to her, it looked like the god's themselves have wanted to destroy this place for some sins it's people has committed. Huge gaps in the earth, now the rubbles of the once great stone monuments and hundreds of fallen trees everywhere filled the area.

She kept on walking, yet everywhere she went the sights of destruction followed her. She arrived in a ruined village that somehow caught fire during the incident, flames and the smell of burning flesh filled the area and charred corpses could be seen everywhere.

At her feet lay a slightly burned child that she only noticed because he had coughed, she knelt down to him and took his hands.

"I'm scared ….. I do not …..want to die…." he mumbled out

The green haired woman took her right hand to the boys temple "Shh, go to sleep you don't need to suffer anymore."

She pulled her hands over the boy's eyes and granted him a final dream before his death.

Suffering was all around her yet she just kept walking and walking.

She came across a field of dead bodies; these ones didn't die of the disaster but of battle, seeing how half the bodies were that of pagans and the other half were that of a city dwellers it was quite obvious what happened here, some of the captured tried to use the confusion created by the disaster to escape, only to end up in a sword fight with their captors.

She didn't know how many survived nor did she care as she just went on.

A large army marching from the borders were sighted by her, they wore the colours of one of the neighbouring countries, the march was led by a knight with a horned helmet, no one was there to stop them from taking over the territories, so of course they would try to make use of the situation. They hadn't noticed her as she expertly hid in a nearby forest.

She ignored a battle march and went on, she didn't know how far she has walked when she came across large floating objects in the sky, and witnessed how they were raining hell upon any who remained on the surface, killing them all without a single thought given to them. She waited until they passed and moved on once more.

Cries of anguish filled the next area she moved into, she could make out large bodied men in blue cloaks killing anyone in their way.

She winced at the sight as one of them banged the head of a pagan woman against a rock. Some men tried to defend themselves by attacking the bizarre invaders, but it was all futile as their attacks revealed that their enemies weren't killable by swords or spears. Few of the remaining shamans used their magic to bring a few of them down, but even that was futile, the Holy Shroud Tousho frames are capable of repairing themselves if damage is sustained.

She noted how the shamans weren't killed by the strange automatons and instead knocked them and hauled them away. The remaining men were smitten to death with their holy spells.

'Looks like it wasn't just one country that decided to make use of the confusion, and this one seems to be far more dangerous than the other one.' Either way it was clear that staying here any longer was pointless, the pagans and Medea were already tumbling down even if they probably don't even realize it yet as they are most likely still celebrating their recent victories in Dummonia.

She originally lingered around because she wanted to make use of Medea and the army she had gathered, but now that clearly wasn't going to happen.

The green haired woman picked up her steps once more, but decided to stop when she noticed that that the automatons were being taken down.

It was a lightning fast purple blur that seemed to be striding across the field, taking the Tousho down before they could even react, each time one went down a rattle of chains could be heard as they were disabled.

She successfully eliminated all of them, allowing enough time for the survivors to escape into the forests, but her victory was short lived as blonde haired woman came with even more automatons. These ones were different, they were larger and bulkier, and they didn't have legs anymore and seemed to be simply floating in the air.

They raised their enormous metal hands and their shoulders glowed with a green light as they all unleashed a barrage of magical spells on the purple haired woman, forcing her to retreat, they didn't bother to chase her and were simply content in continuing their conquest.

After even more walking she finally reached the border, this was the place where no pagans dared to go venture into. The area was filled with a thick fog and strange sounds could be heard coming from the forest leading into the area, just like the rumours said it inspired fear into her.

But she lived through far worse, she decided to go into the mist and investigate, hoping to find something that will be useful for her in the long run.

As she progressed the gripping fear in her heart was gone and was replaced with uneasiness as visions and hallucinations started to assault her.

She ignored the vision of a nun who laughed at how she wanted to throw away the gift she had wished for.

_I must go on_

She refused to acknowledge the existence of the hundreds of people calling her a monster.

_I must continue_

A vision of a mob appeared before her wielding burning torches and stakes against her, they rushed at her angrily shouting "Burn the witch, burn her!"

'These are just illusions, and even if they are not I will be fine either way.'

But then as a pitchfork pierced her abdomen she realized this was very real, the illusion somehow came to life, she quickly caught on and threw away her bag to save it from the impending flames. She was stabbed over a hundred times and her whole body was burned down to the bones, yet she regenerated anyway, damage was meaningless to her. By the time she finished regenerating the illusions were gone, she retrieved her bag and continued her journey stark naked.

As she went on the fog started to clear and seen one final illusion, it was of a silver haired boy who cried that she had abandoned her and how much he loves her. She of course ignored it and continued her journey, there were no more illusions, and instead they seemed to be replaced by people with glowing red eyes and fangs.

They charged at her with their salivating mouths and insatiable blood thirst, yet as they approached her, a red sigil appeared on the girl's forehead, and every one of them that came close went to the ground in convulsions grasping their head. She simply went on and soon the apostles gave up on trying to eat her.

When she arrived at something that looked like a castle, she knew she had arrived. She went to the front door and before she could do anything it opened with a creak, she simply smiled at this and decided to accept this invitation.

She walked into the castle, and it's massive doors closed behind her.

…

**Author Notes: Not much to say about this chapter, just trying to build the setting some more and introduce new factions + characters. **

**Also most of you probably thought that Emiya would conquer all of Medea's territories alone, without the interference of a 3rd party, even if I say that an arc is focused on a certain faction, it won't stop the other factions from moving as it would be unlikely that they wouldn't attack a country that is warring against another one. This is how it will be for the most part of the fic as long as there are many factions; everyone will be constantly moving and scheming. **

**The Medea arc will most likely last 3-4 more chapters; I have already come up with a final boss and an optional side boss for the arc.**

**This arc will be most likely be followed up by the Sect arc, where we will deal with Mordred and the Holy Magic Sect. **

**And as always I put up various images to my profile with characters that readers might not be familiar with, I put up pictures of Minasaki, Rebecca and the Tousho; I also updated the map as always.**

**Responses to reviews: **

**-What happened to Morgana?**

**To be fair I tried to play around with the idea to introduce her this chapter, but decided against it since introducing too many characters at once is a bad idea and only hurts the pacing of the story. She will most likely appear after Caliburn is broken (which will happen at the end of the Medea arc)**

**-Will I use this fic as a base to make a Fate/Zero fanfiction?**

**I will not write other fics while I'm doing this one, too many fanfics that I liked died because the author decided to go work on their other fic and then put that one on hiatus, I don't want this to end up like that.**

**And once I finish, I will most likely continue with my other ideas prior to this, such as a Fourth and Fifth Holy Grail War directed by Yukari or a fate stay night where Yukari curses Emiya Shirou with a mystic face that makes anyone who sees him fall in love with him.**

**-Regarding Emiya Shirou and Meia fight**

**Emiya now has a fully human body and so he now has the limitations of a human body as well, losing most of your blood will naturally put you into that kind of that state, former Counter Guardian or not.**

**-Caliburn not having regenerative powers?**

**Well I got that from type moon wikia, so if it's not in canon then blame that, though I vaguely remember bits in the vn and the anime that says that Caliburn gave regeneration to Saber.**


	7. Chapter 7

**I do not claim ownership over any of the characters, locations or terminology appearing in this fanfic except for those of my own creations, everything belongs to their respective owners.**

**Chapter 7: Dreams, a Taste of Victory and the Broken Sword**

Witch of Betrayal.

What a ridiculous title to give me, when in fact I was the one who was betrayed.

Played by Aphrodite to love a man I didn't even know….

….then forced to betray my father for that very own man.

But the goddess decided that wasn't enough torment for me…..

….and soon she made me murder my own brother in cold blood like she did with my father.

I was denounced as a witch for the deeds that I was made to commit…..

…..was forced to flee from my own country….

…..only to be betrayed by Jason himself as well, when he chose another over me.

Because of this, I finally decided to really become the Witch that the people condemned me as; I took my revenge upon Jason and lived the rest of my life as a true witch.

Then after my death, I was summoned as one of the servants for the Holy Grail War…..

….A competition for a powerful artifact capable of granting any wish.

An opportunity for myself….

….to set things right.

I could have used it to get my revenge on Aphrodite and Jason…..

…..or to make all my bad deeds never happen in the first place.

Perhaps even a chance at a new life?

But sadly my master…..

….was not a man I could ever work with.

So I bided my time and made him use up his command seals on trivial things, luring him into a false sense of security, and then ending his life when his back was exposed.

But without a source of prana my body was quickly dissipating….

….I started wandering around aimlessly; I reached Ryuudou Mountain and awaited my death.

But instead Fate decided to smile upon me….

….and so I met him…

…my beloved Souichirou.

I had shamelessly begged for his help at the feet of the temple….

….and he helped me without hesitation, becoming my new master.

I eventually fell in love with Souichirou-sama, as he was the first person to treat me kindly and show genuine loyalty.

…Real love, not something fake that was forced on me by some Goddess.

So I planned to win the tournament in order to prolong the time I can spend with my beloved, beyond the grail war.

I became a witch once more so I could accomplish that goal; I manipulated the servants of the war and used underhanded methods to win.

And I almost succeeded, victory was just moments away.

We had eliminated Rider early, Assassin, Archer and Saber were under my thumb, the only ones that could still oppose us were Berserker and Lancer….

….but then that despicable man in red, Archer dared to betray us in the most crucial moment.

I watched as the countless blades were about to be launched at us, I was already moving my body to protect Souichirou-sama from harm….

….but I couldn't move, nothing else did, the swords simply remained in air and everything was frozen.

Time itself has stopped and a woman with half her body in a gap appeared as If some wicked god, finding this situation to be incredibly amusing.

I hated and despised gods, but she had offered me something that I couldn't refuse.

"….If you choose to participate in a game of mine and manage to win, then I will grant you the happy end you so vehemently seek." she said in a honey like voice that couldn't be resisted.

"Otherwise…" a malicious expression crossed her face as she snapped her fingers.

Time resumed normal and I was impaled with swords.

I coughed blood, but the next thing I knew I was back in the same position as before, time still frozen and I'm uninjured.

"….you will meet your inevitable death." she finished her sentence with a smile.

Naturally I accepted and the next thing I knew that I was in a completely different and strange land, reminding me of the days of my life.

Magic itself filled the air; the supernatural was still present and strong, not like the modern times I have been summoned into.

I have noticed that I was not alone in this strange place, a certain blue haired samurai that I binded to the temple gate was also with me.

"Assassin…but how?"

"Some sexy lady came to me saying that she would free me and let me get many interesting fights if I accompanied you in this place."

"Since I was extremely bored just guarding that shitty gate of course I agreed."

Assassin held out his hand and I took it with a smile on my face as he helped me get up from the ground.

We have been together since the beginning and more and more people flocked to my banners.

Memories of one of my earliest victories filled my head.

The village was burning, its defenses torn down and its people beaten by the pagans under my command.

Even though they had a high number of defenders we still won without any casualties.

_Whoosh_

A red blur came darting at me and I would have surely died if it weren't for Assassin who blocked a crimson looking blade for me.

"Hoh, you were able to block _my_ strike, impressive."

It was a young looking blonde girl wielding a strange supernatural ability that allowed her to manipulate blood, she engaged in a duel with Assassin.

But soon they found out that they were evenly matched in skill, so they stopped fighting for a moment with a smile on their face.

"You people seem amusing; tell me what your goals are."

"We are going to conquer all of Britain and destroy anyone who dares to stand in our way."

To this the nearby pagans who were watching the duel erupted in cheers.

"Fufu, so conquest is your goal then? Very well, I, Meia Bloodroad have decided to bear witness to this ambition of yours." She said with a smile creeping onto her face.

So Meia has joined us and our numbers just kept growing after rumours spread that I planned to conquer all of Britain.

…

I started sweating as my dreams took a turn for the worse.

Darkness overtook me and I could only make the sounds of the wind blowing cries of agony and suffering.

_A lightning hit the area and illuminated the surrounding darkness._

_Bodies_

Piles and piles of bodies upon each other.

_Those markings on their skin_

_Those tribal garments_

I instantly realized that these were the corpses of the pagans who had sworn their allegiance to me.

The wind made the ruined banner flutter in motion and soon the disgusting stench of putrid corpses entered my nostrils.

I fell back from the combination of smells and sights.

_Splash_

This took less than one second and darkness has already returned.

I noticed that I fell into something wet and my robes started absorbing it.

I didn't need any lightning to know what it was.

It was blood….

…The blood of all the people who died for my sake.

Another lightning broke the darkness and made me notice a figure that was left standing among the corpses.

I started running towards it, my steps echoing loudly in the sea of blood.

Even in the darkness I recognized that figure, it could only belong to Meia.

Her golden blonde hair now is stained in a sickening ghostly white colour which stuck out in the blackness like a sore thumb.

"Meia…." I muttered out

This made the girl turn around slowly, her face was falling apart and her eyes were bleeding.

The sight horrified me.

"I didn't want to die yet….."

Meia ran stumbled towards me, pieces falling of her in the process.

She clung to my robes as she said.

"You said you would lead me to many magnificent battles."

"You said that you would show me the victory you spoke of."

"WELL, IS THIS WHAT LIES AT THE END OF YOUR ROAD?"

She roared out while gesturing towards the corpses and all the blood around her, her jaw fell apart preventing from any further words from her.

I hugged the girl tight as her body crumbled apart in my hands.

"It was my fault…. I shouldn't have left her alone."

Said the familiar voice behind me, I looked back rejoicing to hear someone else here, only to be tormented by another vision.

_Drip Drip Drip_

The blood of the samurai kept spilling increasing the already endless sea of blood even further.

He was impaled from the back on a tall tree, unable to get off and slowly bleeding out.

"Hold on Assassin, I'll get you off immediately!"

"Don't bother….. this is a fitting end to someone….who abandoned his friend." he said, blood dripping from his mouth.

I attempted to help him, but my limbs hardened and started to turn to steel.

I couldn't move at all, a fear like no other took me over.

Soon my entire body was solidified, only my left eye and brain were left intact, forced to see and think in a prison of steel that was my own body.

A voice filled my head, a voice that I couldn't disobey.

"**End his life**."

I didn't want to do it, but my body moved forward regardless of my will.

My body arrived at it's destination, it took rule breaker out and murdered Assassin like it had done so many others.

I was forced to watch the betrayed look the Samurai sent me as I coldly ended his existence.

I took some more steps, but my steel body crumbled apart as I spotted someone in Red.

Another voice filled my head, this one was familiar

"**You are running out of time**."

I woke up with a scream that alerted the nearby guards, it was a horrifying and ominous nightmare, as a magus I could tell that these dreams were bad omens, but what could they be warning me of?

Suddenly I feel that I lost the connection with the ley line that I have been leeching power from.

'Did something happen at home?' A dreading discomfort came over me as I plundered on the possibilities

…..

He was dreaming of that fire again.

The fire that gave birth to him….

….his earliest memory.

Everything was being consumed by the flames and made the night sky glow so much that it seemed like it was broad daylight.

Cries of death and despair rang out everywhere as people tried to save each other or themselves, only to be consumed by the flames and turned into nothing but ash.

Those who couldn't move and were trapped by the flames were doomed to their death.

Those who moved to save the trapped people faced the same fate as well.

Only he survived, for he had ignored the others and just moved forward.

Forward forward, always ever forward.

That was the only reason he had survived.

But even he was getting exhausted and weaker; the smoke made it harder for him to breath and the fire didn't let him know where he was going.

The disgusting smell of charred human flesh that entered his nose almost made him throw up, but he continued, unrelenting.

His will and mind wants to keep on moving, but his body was completely overwhelmed and gave out under him.

He fell to the ground and with not being able to move he looked up to the sky that was painted in orange and red colours.

He expected to see the usual strange towering black monument in the view like he usually does during these dreams.

But instead he saw _that_ woman wielding an umbrella gazing at him with a creepy smile in her black gap.

…..

Emiya woke up with a small scream and his whole body drenched in sweat like he was in a bad fever.

He got up halfway in the bed and covered his face with his hands.

"Ha…..Ha…..Ha…"

"Ha….Ha…Ha….."

He stopped his ragged breaths when he realized that he was in company.

"Minasaki… what do you think you are doing in my chambers?"

"You seemed to be having a nightmare so I came over to comfort you~."

He tried really hard to ignore the fact that she was naked and inching closer and closer to him.

He sighed, 'This is going to be a long day.' he thought.

"Are you worried about the upcoming battle?" she asked while tracing his chest with her fingers.

"Yes."

"Even with all the preparation you have done?"

"Medea was always one to have multiple tricks up her sleeve, you can never be too careful around her. Since we are at a huge disadvantage in terms of manpower, I need to do everything to give us a fighting chance, Merlin and I will be able to decimate a lot of their troops, but I wonder if that will really be enough to even out the odds."

'What else have I ignored that could be used to give use some more fighting power? '

As he was thinking this he gazed at the girl lying next to him. 'She is a wild card, so she must be strong, right?'

"Geez~, what are you looking at me like that for? Surely you are not thinking of sending me to battle, are you? I'm just a fragile little girl, if I went there I would be surely violated and killed in horrible ways~."

"Yeah, a little girl who coldly murdered one of my subjects…."

"Mou, you are still hung upon that? Well whatever surely as you noticed I'm not much of a fighter and more of an assassin instead, I won't go to battles, but if you want to deal with individual targets, then I might help you."

"Assassination huh, there are only 2 targets in their army that would be worth assassinating. One of them is obviously Medea; if she is killed the enemy troops would quickly lose morale and firepower. "'If Medea is killed many lives will be spared as a result, one life for the price of many' he thought. "The second target would be the blue haired samurai who wields a large katana; he is extremely dangerous and skilled if not stopped."

"Culling all the aces of the enemy, huh? Sounds boring, I think it would be more entertaining to see you overcome them by yourselves. Though if I feel like it I may decide to help, but you shouldn't count on it."

"I wasn't planning on it anyway, we will win with or without your help." he said with a smug smile.

….

Emiya opened the rusty doors of the local blacksmith and the smell of metal and furnace filled his senses as he entered. The smithy was inhabited only by a single presence; it was Merlin who was now without his trademark cloak, revealing his silvery hair. He was completely shirtless as he was furiously banging a piece of metal on the anvil.

"This isn't exactly the place I would have expected to a find a wizard in." he commented as he moved closer

"Heh, well I need to make use of it every once in a while if I want to create some magical artifacts." Merlin said while slightly glancing up.

Emiya looked at the item he was hammering and he instantly realized that he was making a sword.

"What use would a mage have for a sword?"

"It isn't for me, it's for Kay. I'm sure you noticed that he cannot fully use his ability as no ordinary sword can stand the heat for long, I was planning to remedy that."

"I see, let me help, I'm quite proficient when it comes to swords."

"No no, I need to make this one myself, besides I doubt you are as proficient in the field of enchantment as I' am."

"But-"

"No buts, if you don't like it leave."

"Fine, then…..I'll just watch." he said dejectedly.

"While you watch, you could tell me about Saber."

Emiya's eyes narrowed at the mention of the word that no one else in this age should know but him. His quick working mind also realized how Merlin was aware of this.

"So this is what you found out when you dug into my mind…."

"Amongst other things, so are you going to tell or not?"

"It's a long story—"

"Oh please, I have all the time, do indulge me."

"Very well, I shall tell you the basic version of it."

So he told him about everything that Arthuria would have come to face in her life, how she had regretted everything and how she bet everything on the Grail War, only to be plunged into more suffering and realize that it was a false hope.

Merlin only silently listened to the tale, working on the sword all the while.

And thus an hour passed like this.

"…and after that she faded away and I never saw her again." He finished his story, of course leaving out few bits like the fact that he met her a few more times in the grail wars where he was summoned as Archer.

"Huh, so I guess _my_ actions condemned Arthuria to a lifetime of solitude and despair, only to be called into many more conflicts that are in the far future, I guess she wasn't as fit to be a King as my visions told me." Merlin said while engraving another rune into the sword.

"No you are wrong, she was too perfect. The people could never understand or sympathize with a perfect king like her, her perfection itself has alienated her from her subjects."

"So what makes someone the best possible King then?"

"I don't know, Monarchy is a flawed system anyway; it places the entire burdens and weight of a country and its people on a single person."

"A strange thing_ for_ a King to say, do you think you can handle the burden?" he asked as he engraved a fiery red gemstone into the blade.

He went into a deep thought, considering his situation, he honestly wasn't certain about anything thanks to the nature of this game, who knows how many wild cards are there and how many factions they control already. If Meia, a simple wild card was so powerful, what would the pieces be like then?

"I don't know….nothing is certain in this place, as the whole of Britain have been turned into a playground of powerful monsters."

Merlin actually seemed to be paying more attention to this than the story of Arthuria "Powerful monsters? You mean like that woman who was with you at the beginning? What do you mean by 'turned into a playground'?"

"Wait….you seen her? Where and when?"

"I guess this truly confirms it that she was indeed related to your appearance. Soon after you pulled out the sword, I spotted her looking at me in the distance; I knew immediately that she was something otherworldly from the power she was exuding."

"Yeah, she and few others are playing a disgusting game all over Brittania that involves innocent people's lives. I'm her 'piece' or so I'm told, if I manage to defeat all other pieces or conquer all of Britain, she will win the game. It is also the only way to end this stupid game, so I'm playing along, I just need to discover the other pieces and then I will deal with all of this."

"There are more of those monsters and they are playing some mysterious game spanning all of Britain? Fascinating I must say. So have you discovered any of the players yet? "Merlin asked like a curious child

"Only one, a strong vampire that resides in the northern parts of Britain."

Merlin added another final rune to the sword and Emiya's eyebrows rose up.

"You didn't say that you were making a cursed sword….."

"Hoh, you are better than I thought if you can just notice by looking at it, but can you tell what kind of curse I put on it?"

"A vile kind that I'm most familiar with, damage inflicted by this blade will be unable to be healed by normal means…"

…

Meanwhile….

…..in the Northern parts of Britain….

…..there was a richly decorated golden palace; inside it sat a golden haired, red eyed man on a golden throne, wearing nothing but a white robe, every part of his being radiated an aura of power and charisma. He was drinking a red wine from a similarly expensive looking goblet, when a muscular man walked into the room.

He appeared before the golden haired man and knelt before him. "My King we have successfully captured the city, but the enemy leader, Nero was not found inside it."

"Is that all?" he asked with a bored expression on his face

"Yes, your majesty."

"Then leave."

The man left and closed the door behind him.

"Looks like that mongrel is a coward just like I suspected, fleeing while her city burns to the ground….don't you agree Kotomine?"

From the darkness of the throne room walked out a shadowy priest with, bluish purple clergy clothes, his eyes were devoid of any life and his expression said nothing.

"Perhaps she was just afraid that you would propose to her as well and ran away while she could."

"Don't mock me Kirei, that pretender is only similar to Saber in appearance only, she lacks her ideals and motivations that made her so radiating on the battlefield, do not compare that vulgar whore to her."

"Hah." Kirei nodded blankly, not really understanding Gilgamesh's tastes.

"Now that you defeated Nero, where will you proceed next, to the south perhaps? No…you will be looking for a challenge after that shameful display Nero has put you through, that means you will be going to Transylvania." The priest concluded

"Indeed, it is time to see if this 'Scarlet Devil' is really that fearsome of a beast as they say."

….

A few days later a messenger has arrived to King Emiya, saying that the scouts have spotted the pagan army moving towards him.

He forwarded the orders for his captains to move the army to their designated position, while he and Merlin took their own places as well.

They took up position at an overlooking hill that allowed them to spot the pagan army whenever it was coming, they prepared for this battle for days, and if everything goes according to plan they shall survive with minimal losses.

Meanwhile the troops were getting anxious, everyone of them was uncertain despite the plans they have been told. They weren't sure they could win against the pagan army. One thought was upon everyone's mind, would this be the place where the Pagan Queen of Wessex would be defeated or would Cornwall prove to be just another stepping stone in her conquest? Only the end results will tell.

Emiya thought he had seen something in the distance, so he had flooded his eyes with prana, reinforcing them and thus increasing his vision by a few kilometres. And sure enough, he spotted the Pagan army, marching towards them.

"They are here." he said to Merlin.

"Excellent, they seem to be coming from the direction where I predicted, this will make things smoother." He took out what appeared to be a ritualistic dagger and readied it.

Medea's army was marching forward, but unbeknownst to them there was a huge magical circle of blood at their feet, hidden beneath the grass.

"Right where I want them." said Merlin as he stabbed his palm with the dagger and let the blood flow out.

"**Aw rlyos adk afy, Pswiro! Rlofs ty uail haqylz ofk dyfk uail zyljofsz ab swy bdoty paty sa tu oek**!" as Merlin chanted the otherworldly lines, the circle started to glow with a red light, Medea immediately detected the surge of magical energy, but she couldn't pull out her troops in time.

Flames erupted from the ground, sending both earth and hundreds of pagans into the sky. From where the ground used to be emerged a large, flaming demon. It wore obsidian black armour and from it's back and from the parts that were not protected by armour, continued to blaze the flames of hell itself. On its head it wore an obsidian crown and it gazed at the troops in front of it with its 3 fiery eyes.

It let out a menacing roar before charging towards them, the men in the front were unable to run from the flaming beast as there were comrades behind them, so they were forced to bear the attack.

They immediately died, as the demon's massive frame easily crushed their bodies and its fiery aura incinerating anyone else who survived. It slashed with its claws once which sent forward a wave of flame that immediately roasted several dozens of pagans. It picked up several soldiers who were still trying to defend against the monster, and easily swallowed them into its endless stomach. This was its prize for coming here, yes this demon was invited for a feast by the wizard Merlin, and there were plenty of pagans to feast on.

A giant that almost rivalled the demon in size tried to take him down, he swung his oversized axe at the demon only to break against its obsidian armour, the flaming beast then used its large hands to tear into the giant's chest and tear the huge man apart, roaring in triumph while doing so.

This caused many of Medea's troops to quickly lose morale, some even attempted to flee, before they were brought back together by the chieftains and shamans. The said shamans readied their spells and attempted to douse out the demon's flames with blasts of water, it looked like it extinguished for a while only to resume burning even fiercer than before as it continued to slaughter the troops.

Then they used ice spells next to freeze the demon, it seemed that it was over as it stopped moving for half a minute, before violently exploding out from the ice block, sending shards of ice flying everywhere, decimating even more troops.

Emiya used this moment to strike as well; he traced his good old black bow and muttered the first line of the aria.

"_**I' am the bone of my sword.**_"

A drill like sword appeared in his hands, that would turn into an arrow once fired. This was the noble phantasm modified by the red guardian himself, Caladbolg II a powerful A ranked noble phantasm, capable of twisting even space itself when fired.

He took his firing stance, prana surging all around him and readied his weapon to strike, he pulled the projectile back and flooded it with prana, making it _broken_, "**Caladbolg**" and then shot it at the enemy army. It travelled faster than the speed of sound, drawing a trail of spiral in its wake, as it flew it became like an arrow of light.

It hit the enemy army and a huge explosion was caused by it, at least a thousand troops were killed by it, the fires that it caused claiming even more lives while he projected 3 golden objects next to him, these were the explosive noble phantasm known as **Vajra **an instrument of the Indian thunder god that he had seen in Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon like so many weapons in his arsenal.

He shot the 3 prepared Vajra's and as they hit the earth itself erupted and a golden lightning raced across the field, electrocuting many of pagans in the process. He watched as Merlin's demon continued its assault and tore even deeper into Medea's lines, it was almost near her. The witch finished chanting a spell of some sort and from where the Demon has emerged from, several chains came out and bonded themselves onto the demon's body.

They began pulling the demon back, but it didn't want to leave yet as it still hasn't feasted enough, it resisted the pull and tried to move forward, but to no avail, soon the chains brought him down to his knees, and he could only resist being pulled into the abyss by digging its claws into the ground. Several laser like beams shot towards the demon which sent him flying back into the darkness where he came from. He let out a roar as he disappeared and the hole closed above him.

"Looks like this is as much as we could cut them down." Emiya said as he looked at the results of their collective destruction, about 1/3 of the pagan army was destroyed or incapacitated. "How are you holding up? Summoning and sustaining that demon must have been quite taxing." He himself was also exhausted since creating a broken phantasm took a lot of prana out of him and Vajra is not a bladed weapon so it costs more to trace than other noble phantasms.

"I will be fine." he said as he put away the hand he had stabbed with dagger, Emiya didn't see it, but strange black markings started appearing on it. Just like how he had failed to notice that several cracks formed on the blade that he was carrying on his back.

….

Arthuria as well as a thousand soldiers were waiting for the enemy to approach; they knew they would soon reach them as they already heard the explosions coming from the distance, which meant that Merlin and Shirou have already begun the first part of the plan.

Several minutes passed and the sound of explosions stopped, it meant that that the pagan is already coming towards them.

Soon the ground itself started shaking as fast moving figures could be seen approaching, they were the pagan cavalry, riding magically dominated giant wolves. Hundreds of them were charging at them which made many of the defenders sweat in anticipation and fear.

Only several hundred meters separated them, something that would be crossed in a matter of seconds.

"Ready your spears and bows!" ordered a loud voice which made the men take up their positions.

_400 meters_

Everyone was in their place now, awaiting the incoming enemy.

_200 meters_

"Archers, Fire!" rang out the voice of a captain, which let loose a few hundred arrows.

_They flew towards their target._

_Many missed entirely_

_Others would dig into the skin of the wolves, but it such damage was trivial to their huge bodies and they charged on._

_Only some riders that were hit in the vital spots were taken out._

_100 meters_

A few more seconds passed and the wolf riders were about to reach them, but soon they would realize that they were in for a surprise as the ground disappeared beneath their feet and they fell to their doom, only to be impaled on the spikes that were planted into the pitfalls. The entire first line of wolf riders was taken out this way, but the ones that were left quickly caught on and made their wolves jump, effectively avoiding the pitfalls.

"Brace for impact!" Everyone raised their spears and the wolves slammed into them, some of them dying due to being pierced in the heart or the head, others that were pierced in the legs or the shoulders kept charging forth, demolishing the line of soldiers. The line couldn't hold out for long as the remaining the group of wolf riders joined in on the push, demolishing everything that was in their path, both soldiers and their comrades that happened to be in their way. It was a reckless and dishonorable tactic, but it worked as the defenders formation was completely broken thanks to it.

Arthuria readied her sword as one of the creatures was approaching her.

It jumped at her, she didn't waste any time and flooded her weapon with prana, slashing the giant wolf and rider in 2 with a single attack. Blood sprayed from it and tainted her beautiful cheeks; she didn't bother to wipe it as there were many in need of help against the strong beasts.

2 groups were near her, a group of soldiers wielding mostly swords that were having a hard time piercing the creature's thick skin with their short blades and another group that seemed to be doing better as they brought down the wolf to their level with their spears. So she moved towards the group that needed more help.

It was about to crush a soldier with it's paw, but she got there faster and managed to slice the paw off, the creature was enraged by this and attempted to bite her head off, she sidestepped out of the way only to notice that the rider's sword was also coming for her head, she used another prana burst to slice off the sword arm of the pagan man, who fell to the ground clutching the stump where his arm used to be a second ago.

The oversized wolf showed little concern to its master as it stepped on his fallen body, crushing the life out of it on his charge to attack Saber again. Arthuria sent prana to her feet and dodged out of the way, while tracing her sword against the creature's side. When she looked back she noticed that the wolf's intestines had fallen out and its body soon collapse as well.

Her instincts spiked as she felt danger from behind her, she quickly turned back sword ready to notice another wolf rider, but she didn't need to take it out as 2 lightning fast sword strikes took out both the canine and the rider.

She immediately recognized the person who helped her.

"I appreciate the assistance, Bedivere." She said while sending him a small smile

"No problem…." Bedivere stopped slightly as more enemies approached "…looks like we are surrounded." He stated as another 4 more riders encircled them

"Looks like it, let's team up until we deal with them."

They stood back to back against each other, each of them watching for an attack on their side, the wolves didn't attack yet and just growled at them, they seemed to be waiting for the order from their riders, the pagan soldiers looked into each other's eye and nodded, conveying some sort of plan.

One of the wolves from Bedivere side launched, he already sent forward and attack by reflex, but to his surprise at the last possible moment the wolf jumped to the side and caused him to miss his attack. The wolf feigned his attack once again, however this time Bedivere was fast enough to draw blood from its face, only to notice that the other wolf was also lunging at him using the fact that he was concentrating on the other one, by the surprised look of the rider he clearly didn't expect him to refocus so fast, Bedivere ended both of their lives with a strike that seemed like a single stroke.

"Looks like they are trying to distract and bait us since they know that we are stronger in the melee."

He said to Arthuria as he noted that she was being baited with the exact same tactic as well.

"Such cowardly tricks will not work against me!" she declared as she stepped forward with her legs, channeling magical energy into them, which made her barrel towards the wolf riders like a bullet, she cut the first one before it could even react and used her momentum to deal with the second one as well.

Bedivere just whistled at her display "You don't really mess around do you? Let's finish the last one together. "

But before they even started moving against the last rider, they noticed that something was darkening the skies, Bedivere looked up and immediately realized what it was. "Enemy projectiles!" he shouted.

Responding to his words many soldiers raised their shields to defend from the incoming arrows, and they would have been safe, if those were really arrows, instead they were massive spears that were thrown by the pagan infantry that caught up with the riders and now were furiously stampeding towards them, with axes, maces and whatever weapon they had at hand after throwing away their spears.

Many of the spears easily pierced the defenders shields, ending their lives almost instantly; some hit the few remaining riders and wolves, even the one that was next to Saber and Bedivere. Unlike them the enemy didn't need to be concerned for their troops, they would just need to win by whatever means possible and crush the defenders of Cornwall through sheer force and numbers, so the sacrifices of a few or even a hundred were within acceptable parameters.

Arthuria managed to dodge all of them through her extremely good instincts, which told her where to step and move in order to evade the blows. While Bedivere didn't bother with dodging and was simply content to cut down any offending piece of weapon that dared to come at him.

The defenders were still all over the place and out of formation because of the first charge and the hail of spears that came at them, surely if the infantry attacked them now they would be quickly ripped to shreds. Indeed the situation looked bleak, but it was all within the plan as the sound of a horn being blown rang across the battlefield. The one blowing it was none other than Saber; Emiya had given her this role since he knew that she would survive whatever came at her in this battle.

…

Meanwhile in an area far enough from the battlefield to not be seen, but close enough to hear the noise of battle hundreds of knights and soldiers on horse stood idly, waiting for the call that would signal that their allies are in need of help.

Amongst the soldiers was also Kay, who was grasping his new blade that way given to him by Merlin just before they went to sortie for the battle, the sword was an one handed sword which looked like a normal sword except it had several lines of runes engraved into it and a red ruby stone on the guard, he could also feel some faint power coming from it, the reason for that was obvious since Merlin explained that it was a magical sword that would allow for the better usage of his ability.

As he was looking at his sword he was thinking about a lot of things, how he wasn't actually Arthuria's real brother for example. That surely explained why she was so superior to him in almost every way.

He was also thinking about the last battle and how he couldn't do anything but be smacked around, he grasped his chest as he was thinking this where beneath the armour a scar laid that was inflicted by the blue haired samurai.

'I will do it, I will become stronger, I shall prove my worth in this battle and I will eventually become worthy enough to call Arthuria my brother, whether we are true siblings or not.' he thought this as he reached a newfound determination.

Kay was broken out of his thoughts as he heard the sound of a horn being blown; he knew what it meant as all of them were carefully instructed with the plan.

Everyone readied themselves and the captain that was leading this group spoke up "All right lads, looks like our comrades finally need our help, so let's give it to them, follow my lead!" he started charging with his sword raised an the group including Kay followed.

They galloped for a while and then they reached the battlefield, many of them had sadly taken in the fact that several of their own have been killed, either ripped apart or stabbed to death, nevertheless they were here to stop additional casualties.

They charged towards the pagan troops who only just noticed them coming, their shamans tried to order the rabble into defensive positions, but they were too late as the hundred horsemen broke into their lines easily knocking the lightly armoured pagans away. Many who fell had their bones and bodies squashed and broken immediately after the stampede of hooves stepped on them. The knights swung their swords and axes while continuing their charge deeper into the enemy lines.

They were like an efficient war machine, their horses crushing and shoving anyone out of the way who would try to harm their riders, while the knights used their weapons to decapitate and eliminate anyone who would try to run away.

Kay tested out his new sword and slashed down the enemies of his country, he found his new blade to be very strong, it easily passed through and cut his opponents whether they be armoured or not, a larger pagan tried to stab him, so he brought his arm down to parry the blow, but to his surprise the pagan's sword easily broke under the touch of his weapon, the blade continued it's path and removed the head of the heretic.

Others fought just as valiantly as Kay did…..

…But even this would not be enough to destroy the massive infantry, as they collided with more and more bodies their speed and movement decreased, several knights fell to the pagans who now realized their situations and worked together to bring down the horsemen, even the shamans helped them by casting either fireballs that would roast the armoured knights inside their metal armours or spells of freezing that would prevent any further movement from them.

Indeed it was fortunate that this was not all they had, as another massive sound of stampeding horses came from the other side. It was the second cavalry group led by Sir Ector himself, he raised his sword and shouted "For Cornwall!" as they went into the undefended side of the pagans. This attack was way more effective than the first one thanks to the fact that pagans now needed to divert their attention to 3 sides as the Cornwallian infantry had finished their share of enemies and now joined in to attack the infantry as well.

Being squashed into fighting 3 large forces the pagan infantry couldn't last long and was soon completely eliminated. But the battle was far from over as this was only a small part of their full army.

….

"Hmm, I didn't expect them to have more forces than that." Medea said as she was gazing into a crystal ball observing the events of the battle, sounding completely apathetic despite losing several hundred of her soldiers.

"What shall we do now, your highness?" asked one of the chieftains

"It is irrelevant in the end now that they fully revealed their hands it is time to go in and crush them with our forces, send in the giants and chimeras first, then another battalion of infantry, tell everyone else to support them if the need arises, I shall be heading out myself as well."

"But what about that wizard who attacked us earlier, what if he summons another demon?" he asked concerned

"Summoning such a powerful demon takes a lot of preparation, it is unlikely that he would have another one, if he shows up I will just defeat him myself."

The army started to march again, with the chimeras and the giants going in first with their thunderous footsteps that shook the area with each step. Medea simply floated above her army, with her cape extending like a pair of wings, watching over them in case the enemy magus shows up again.

….

The armies of Cornwall reorganized themselves now that they finished slaughtering the troops that came at them, all of them knew that it was not over and that the third wave would come soon, they were uncertain if they could win as their numbers were already on the verge of exhaustion and several of them were injured.

"I hope Shirou makes it back in time." Saber said to Bedivere

"Yes, if he and the wizard do not come, then I doubt we would be able to hold out for long against whatever they send us."

Bedivere's words did not help to reinforce the moral of those that were standing next to him as they started to nervous sweat and shake.

"E-Enemy incoming!" nervously shouted a scout that was coming back on his horse, behind him everyone quickly noticed that the beings that were chasing him were definitely not human. They were monsters instead, several meter tall giants wielding huge weapons and clad in black plate armour. Yet strangely the giants were the less stranger sight next to the gigantic wolf like creatures that were rapidly charging towards them, they seemed to be much faster than giants as one of them almost reached the scout, several of them were running on all fours like an animal some of them chose to go bipedal.

One of them pounced at the horsemen and managed to injure the horse with its massive claws; both of them plummeted to the ground and were promptly devoured by the chimeras. Arthuria and everyone else watched horrified as their comrade was torn to shreds, they all knew that this would be their fate if they lost to them, retreat was no longer an option, either they killed these creatures or they would lose.

"Spears, up!" said a captain as the chimeras resumed their attack towards them; everyone raised their spears as they were told. But all of them knew that this frail wall of spears would do little to hold back those beasts, if they couldn't even stop the simple giant wolves then how could they stop these monstrosities that were coming at them?

_Dand Dang Dang_

Strange metallic sounds entered the ears of men, they were the sounds of several swords being launched and striking through the air at an incredible pace aimed right at the Chimeras. The blades easily tore and sliced apart the chimeras into tiny pieces, they whimpered in pain, but they were not dead, soon everyone would realize how much of a bad idea it was to cut them apart.

Emiya had returned just in time to save his troops from the chimeras, the troops hailed and cheered at his return, but the giants and the infantry behind them were still approaching fast, and in due time the chimera would regenerate as well, combining this with the fact that Medea herself was also coming, they were in for a huge surprise.

He traced his bow once more and readied a projectile, they couldn't fight both the troops and the giants at the same time so they needed to come up with a way to only fight one of them instead, he added various properties to the nameless projectile he traced and flooded it with prana, he shot it towards the path of the enemy and it created a large fire when hitting, this immediately stopped most of the troops from advancing, but the giants didn't pay them any mind and just ran over it. The pagan infantry now would either need to find a different path towards or extinguish the fire, nevertheless now they have enough time to deal with the giants until that happens.

Emiya, Kay, Bedivere and Arthuria all moved forward since they are probably the only ones who could stand toe to toe against the giants. The first giant brought its battle axe down against Emiya, but he effortlessly blocked the attack and then used Caliburn to slice the axe in two, the giant was left to attack with its bare hands. It tried to strike him with it's massive hands, but the former counter guardian effortlessly side stepped out of it's way, he tried it 2 more times and it was met with the same results. This enraged the titan and instead it tried to grab Emiya, but he simply raised his sword, Caliburn glowing in a glorious golden colour and slashed the giant's body. The golden blade effortlessly slice through the plate armour of the giant and inflicted a gaping red wound on it's torso, however it was not deep enough to deal any life threatening damage to the huge creature.

While Emiya was soloing the giant the others were also engaging their own colossal behemoths, Arthuria was doing arguably the best out of the group, her prana empowered strikes were actually pushing the giant despite her smaller size. She expertly cut apart the chains that were holding together the brute's armour and they hit the ground with a heavy sound. Now that the monster was vulnerable she just needed to hit it in a fatal point, she sent prana to her legs which accelerated her movements, she punctured the giant in the chest right where it's heart should be, then used another prana burst to drive her sword sideways to make it exit out of the giant inflicting more damage into it. The mammoth sized humanoid tried to reach her with its last breath, but it soon fell to its knees and died.

Bedivere was having no trouble evading and parrying the behemoth, but without a powerful sword like Caliburn or ability like prana burst, he couldn't penetrate their thick armour. He needed to do something else; he moved to a fallen soldier and picked up his spear into his other hand.

_Swoosh_

The giant tried to use this opportunity to crush his bones, Bedivere evaded the blow then used his newly found lance to pierce into the giant, it pierced it below the armpits where it was unarmoured then he pulled the spear back in a way that it would sever the tendons there, making him unable to use his right arm, now that he had this weapon he had longer reach and could reach the weak point of the Hulking man.

He evaded several more blows from it as it became noticeably clumsier after it was wounded, it was also bleeding all over the place and Bedivere suspected that it would bleed out in several minutes if left alone, but he wasn't in the mood to wait. He used the next time the giant tried attack him with it's hammer, it obviously missed, but this time Bedivere decided to jump on the arm of the giant then use that as a basis to make another jump, this put him in range that would allow him to pierce the giant's neck, he drove the spear into the said area with all of his strength, he safely landed on his feet and the giant soon collapsed afterwards.

Kay was also doing well, him being on horse had given him the reach and the mobility to easily injure the giant as well as evade it's blows, his new sword was also capable of cutting apart their armour, however he was in a worse situation than the other due to the fact that he was fighting 3 giants at the same time instead of 1, nonetheless he was still winning despite the odds stacked against him, with 2 of the giants already heavily injured.

Emiya finished his first giant by this time and moved on to the next one, of course there were still several left, some took the bait and attacked the 4 of them and some were smarter and went in to rampage through the ranks of soldiers, but even they were losing since the coordination and teamwork of the soldiers of Cornwall managed to bring several of them to their knees and some were already stabbed to death be it with spears or swords.

"All of them are so strong, look at them go against those monsters!" said a soldier in a group that was not occupied with the giants.

"Yeah, I heard rumours about our king, but seeing it first hand is a whole different matter."

„▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" Their conversation was disturbed when one of the chimeras started wiggling and made an otherworldly sound as several tentacles and green goo came out from its body.

„The hell, it's still alive, isn't it?" the man stepped towards the creature and punctured it with his spear, but when he tried to pull it out he noticed that he couldn't, and instead he was pulled into the creature's squirming body when green tentacles emerged from it and grabbed hold of his spear. He was immediately absorbed by the chimera and soon from the mess of body parts 2 smaller chimeras emerged.

"TO ARMS!" shouted someone as all the chimeras that were previously slashed apart had finished regenerating and divided into 2 or more parts.

"Go back to hell you monsters!" several soldiers tried to damage a large chimera, but the wounds they inflicted on it were meaningless.

„▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" Roared the chimera as its eyes were glowing with a bloodthirsty colour, it flexed it's body and several tentacles erupted from it's body, these tentacles were very sharp and sturdy so they easily went through the armours of the soldiers and stuck into them.

"Ghaaha" one of them let out a pained sound as he realized that the tentacle pierced him in the heart, no matter what happened he would die, in a last attempt of revenge he threw his sword at the beast and it successfully pierced it in the skull, but the damage was so trivial to the chimera that it didn't even react to it. The man faded as he died with feelings of regret of unable to save himself or his comrades.

Others who were hit in more 'lucky' areas tried to pull the tentacles out, but they couldn't as it firmly embedded itself in their bodies, so next they tried to cut the tentacle itself with their swords, but soon the horrifying realization dawned on them that their weapons couldn't damage whatever material the tentacle was made out of.

They were suddenly overcome with a feeling of haziness as they felt something leaving their body, they looked down at the tentacle in unison and grimly noted that the green appendage was now getting more and more red, 'That bastard creature is draining our blood.' they thought in unison.

One of them who only had his arm pierced had made the choice to cut off his limb instead, so he brought down his sword, but it wasn't enough to cut it off, he brought it down for a second time and his arm separated from his body. He groaned in pain for a minute before holding his stump with his other hand to prevent bleeding out. He watched as more and more blood left his companions and soon they became nothing more than withered up corpses that had every fluid in them drained, he knew that would have happened to him as well if he didn't sacrifice his arm.

After the blood entered the chimera all of its wounds immediately regenerated and it grew slightly larger. The other chimeras were also quickly wreaking havoc against the troops; unlike the giants normal men stood no chance against these magic made monstrosities. To make matters worse Medea has grown tired of that little fire that was blocking her way so she promptly extinguished it with a wind spell. This naturally allowed the pagan infantry to resume their charge once more.

Emiya cursed himself, he should have known that the chimeras would have a trait like that, after all he hunted several of them even in his life as chimeras are the only phantasmal creatures that managed to survive the age of the gods and still exist in the modern world, usually in the far reaches of the earth where no human goes. Despite that they were still one of the more frequent cases where the normal world collided with the world of magic, and during that times the magus association and the church would work together to keep them a secret from the populace, many times executors are called in to eliminate the creatures that would prove to be harmful for the secrecy of magic. Even he himself has taken up several jobs to eliminate them as they were really dangerous for normal humans.

Which is why he should have expected something like this, Chimeras always possessed varying traits and special abilities due to different breeds and different mages creating them, he should have prepared for a situation where they have regeneration abilities, but he didn't and now his men paid the price for it as they kept getting slaughtered by the beasts.

The situation was extremely bad for them and he needed to think of something fast, there were 3 immediate concerns at the moment, the giants, the chimeras and the incoming army. The soldiers are clearly unable to deal with the chimeras, so that would mean either he himself, Saber, Kay or Bedivere would need to help them, the problem with that is that all of them were busy fighting with the giant and they would be sure to cause as much damage within the ranks as the chimeras if they left them alone.

That means they would need to deal with the giants first in order to free themselves up and allow them to assist elsewhere. He sighed, he wanted to reserve his prana in case he got into a fight with Assassin or Medea as he was already low on reserves from tracing several broken phantasms, but looks he there is no other choice.

"_**Trace on!**_" he loaded 17 swords, and set them into position.

_Dang Dang Dang_

He fired out the swords, and they flew towards the giants with the speed of sound, they didn't even see it coming, with the speed that the swords were going they had no problems penetrating the armour and their lives ended almost immediately. Saber, Kay and Bedivere watched in surprise as their opponents were quickly taken out.

'Now the giants have been dealt with, we need to focus on the chimeras and the pagan infantry.' his mind was already comparing the various possibilities and what results they would bring. ' I would be able to permanently disable the chimeras, but then the infantry would overwhelm us as many of our troops are still preoccupied with the giants that charged into their lines and the chimeras broke any semblance of order that was in the ranks. Which means the incoming enemy must be held back until we are defendable, and only I can do that, but then who would deal with the chimeras? Kay certainly would be able to with that new sword of his and I could just give a noble phantasm to Saber and Bedivere that would even out the odds.'

Not even one second has passed as he thought over all this, he traced 2 copies of Gae Budhie and threw the Yellow lances at Saber and Bedivere, and they caught it without hesitation. "Use that spear to kill those creatures…" he pointed towards the chimeras "…it should sever and destroy whatever magic is keeping them together." he said before turning towards the pagan menace.

"Shirou, where do you think you are going!?" Arthuria asked, worried for her king

"Somebody has to stall the army." he added

"You can't, it's too dangerous! Not even you can hold back an entire army."

"Watch me." he said cockily as he made a dash towards the enemy.

"_**Steel is my body…"**_

"…_**and fire is my blood."**_

…

The pagan troops watched horrified as the King of Cornwall suddenly made his way towards them like some sort of suicidal maniac. And what was surreal about this situation is that this suicidal maniac was making them scared shittles in their pants. It probably had to do with that murderous intent he was leaking or the fact that he was coming towards them at a hypersonic speed and had a large golden blade, ready to strike and draw blood.

Then the red man collided with the army and immediately struck with Caliburn in a horizontal angle, due to the speed he came and the reinforced strength, the blow ended the miserable lives of a dozen pagans who were in the front row and sent several more men flying away to their deaths. He didn't bother to stop with this, he resumed his sprint and went into the heart of the army, he was way too fast for the enemy to hit him or even react in time, he made sure to cut down as many of them as possible while continuing this rampage.

_A limb_

_An arm_

_Sometimes even a head_

They all fell and scattered across the battlefield, he didn't even look who he was striking, he was just focusing on surviving and dealing as much damage as possible. So he ignored the cries of anguish as he dodged another blow that was aimed at him, then another and another. He felt some arrows pierce his shoulders, but he paid it no mind, when the next time he looked there it was already healed, courtesy of Caliburn.

"**Ατλας**!" rang out a word that made him freeze, literally. Several swords and spears pierced his body and clubs and maces bruised his skin as he was left unable to move. He knew what was happening as he experienced this before, the spell _Atlas_ a powerful magic that is capable of freezing even servants in place by altering the pressure in the atmosphere. This could only mean one thing….Medea.

He looked up into the sky, and indeed there floated the Witch of Betrayal with a triumphant expression on her face.

"Well if it isn't Archer, so you were the reason this little county has been such a thorn in my side." she concluded

'Great she seems to recognize me, that must mean that she was probably sent here after we met and exchanged blows, which sadly means I'm more limited to surprising her now.'

"Meia's death, how this tiny army repelled my first assault and that firework earlier, everything is clear now, it has all been your doing…." a hateful scowl crossed her face as she looked at Archer

"I would gladly torture you for the things you have done to me, but alas I do not have the time or the leisure, so I shall remove you from this game, right now." Strange coloured markings appeared beneath her cape and large orbs of light started gathering beneath it. Emiya knew that even a servant would get vaporized if hit by that attack, yet in the face of that impending doom he looked calm as ever, like he expected this to happen.

Medea released the ray of light and it impacted with something….

….but that thing was no Emiya. There stood Merlin who summoned up a magical shield and protected his liege from harm.

"I'm afraid I can't let you interfere with my king, so I came to have an old fashioned wizard duel."

Emiya quickly made use of the opportunity given by Merlin and released a large amounts of prana from his body, that was the only way to counter the effects of Atlas, the surge of prana knocked away the pagans and the weapons that pierced him. He quickly dashed away and continued his slaughter on the pagans, Caliburn already healing the wounds he took.

…..

_Slash_

The yellow rose of mortality came for the chimera's life, it couldn't dodge the blow so the beast raised its right arm to block the blow, and it went through it like a knife would go through butter and severed it. The creature looked confused at its arm seeing as it didn't start regenerating; it gave off an annoying growl then rushed at Arthuria, who simply stabbed Gae Buidhe in the chimera's chest as a response. It pierced its heart and blood started coming out from the wound, needless to say the heart didn't regenerate as well. It confused the beast to no end as this was probably the first time that it felt the emotion known as fear, a simple and potent fear of death. Arthuria didn't bother to pity the magical creature and finished it off with her next strike by impaling it in the skull.

She pulled out the spear from the corpse and looked at it; she stroked the runes that were engraved into it. She knew that it was a magical weapon from the moment Shirou had given it to her, as it radiated a sort of mystical aura, but it became way clearer when she actually used it in combat, all the strength of the creature was meaningless against it; it was a fearsome weapon that could kill monsters. She stopped thinking about useless things and went towards the next chimera, they have slain quite a few of them already but they were still a lot of them left.

Kay cursed under his breath as he dodged a swipe from his chimera opponent "That idiot of king forgot to give me a spear." he dodged a strike that came not from hands of the beast, but from its large tail that resembled that of a scorpions. 'Besides why am I fighting the only one that has a goddamn tail of all things? Well whatever, if he didn't give me a spear then I will just have to improvise.'

He channelled his power into the sword and instead of starting the glow from the heat as usual the sword simply lit aflame. 'So this is what Merlin meant by amplifying my power, huh?' he moved his horse forward and raised his sword to strike, he got near the creature, which once again attempted to knock him off with it's tail, he cut the tail in two and a green goo like substance started flowing out from the wound.

'Doesn't seem to be regenerating.' he thought to himself, he moved his horse once again and struck at the beast once more, it failed to fully connect, but it managed to take of the chimera's ear and lit aflame it's beast-like fur.

As a result of this he was now struck with fighting against a 3 meter tall flaming chimera, which was a pretty terrifying sight mind you.

…..

…Several powerful light rays were shot against Merlin; he didn't even bother to move and simply raised his hand.

"**Faek Zhydd**" an invisible magical shield came out and surrounded him; all the shots that Medea launched at him were nullified. He brought up two of his hands and smiled "My turn now, **Orekufy**!"

At the power of his words a large fireball was launched towards Medea, it glowed with an intense heat as it was about to devour the witch, but she merely flew aside, however the fireball was not done, it exploded and several smaller fireballs came out of it, all of them flying towards the former Servant. She didn't dodge this time and instead just muttered a word "_**Μαρδοξ!**_" and a barrier formed around her that shielded her both from the blast and the flame.

She hovered a little farther from Merlin and raised her staff as she spoke to him "It is certainly unusual to meet a demonic language even in this age. But demonic words are still no match for my divine words, _**Αερο**_!" She released another mystery just by speaking, this time it was a spell that manipulates the wind and turns them into sickles, they flew towards Merlin with a frightening speed.

The wizard raised his hand once more "**Faek Zhydd**" and erected the shield once more, but his eyes shot up in surprise as they went through it and bit in to his skin, he put up his arms to shield the vital areas from harm, his hand as lacerated by many wounds now thanks to this.

"I see, since that spell merely manipulates the wind itself, an element of nature a shield against spells won't work against it."

"Indeed, so what are you going to do, half demon." she said out the last words with a spiteful tone

"So you have figured my little heritage out, eh? In that case I won't need to hold back against you!" to this he threw off his robe, revealing his body that was a little too muscular for a magus, many black tattoos appeared on it with strange symbols and runes, and his eyes now glowed with a golden colour, all of his wounds received from Medea's previous attack started to close.

…..

The red reaper that has taken so many pagan lives in this battle launched once again….

….but was interrupted by a purple-blue lightning that met his golden blade with his overly long katana.

"Assassin, huh? I was wondering when you would show up." he said while their blades were still locked with each other

"Yeah, I have come to take your head, Archer. If you could defeat Meia then you shall prove to be a most entertaining opponent."

Both of them jump back to get some distance, Emiya puts Caliburn on his back "**Trace on**!" and traces Kanshou and Bakuya into his hands. The pagan troops knew better and decided to leave the men alone to their fight and marched towards the Cornwall army instead.

A gust of wind was created as the 2 men darted at each other; Archer tried to get in close to get a hit on him with his twin swords….

…but was stopped as the blue samurai did not permit his entrance, since he was wielding a longer weapon it was more advantageous for him to keep the distance, he would be a fool to give it up.

Assassin launched several blindingly fast strikes at him, Emiya only swung his sword at this, it was swung for the purpose of defence, to deflect his strikes. The blue haired man didn't let up and kept aiming at the red archer, his strikes were aimed at the forehead, the throat and the heart, all of them were meant to kill.

Emiya is pushed back with each strike, but successfully manages to block all of them, but he couldn't afford to go on the offensive as Sasaki approached with another set of combos. He dodged a strike aimed at his head and used this opportunity to close in on Assassin, but it was a pointless move as before he could do anything, his katana was swung sideways and he was forced to deflect it with Kanshou and Bakuya, both of them were shattered from this blow, but that was no problem as he just traced another pair.

The sound of metal hitting metal sounds out as Archer is pushed back even further, his arms felt heavy from having to deflect all these blows. Another group of hits came at him and he raised his arms once more.

"Guh-!" he groaned as the speed and frequency of strikes have increased and he was forced to react to them even faster. His attacks leave no room for openings or any weak spots, so the red man is forced to parry, deflect or evade all of them; those were his only possible moves at the moment. Another swing comes and it hits Kanshou, shattering it, he used this moment to jump back a little and finally put some space between the two of them, as he immediately retraced the black sword.

Assassin didn't let him rest or do anything as he continued his furious attacks, his strength and speed only increased even further. His blade was creating many beautiful arcs as he swung it with his godlike skill. Emiya had no way to fight back against it so he only kept retreating. He knew that he had no chance at defeating him in melee combat, after all Sasaki was a swordsman that was above even Saber in terms of pure skill.

'To defeat him I would need to use one of my noble phantasm…' he briefly gazed down at his Chinese falchions 'or that technique would as well, but I still have a third option left, let's wait a little longer and see if she comes.'

His swords shattered on more time as he thought this, he of course promptly retraced it and blocked the coming blows.

…..

Meanwhile on the other side of the battle field they all but finished exterminating the chimeras; all their toughness was useless against their weapon so they didn't pose as much threat as they were created to do so. The creatures were slain so quickly largely thanks to the fact that Kay could quickly move between the areas and assist the others in slaying the beasts due to the fact that he was on horse.

A harsh sounding battle cry rang out as the pagan infantry finally reached the Cornwall army, their numbers were drastically dwindled and many of them were wounded but their morale was still high being the fanatics they were.

A single thought ran across all of their minds 'If the pagan army is here, then did that mean the king lost?' they quickly ignored the thought as they didn't have the leisure to think on it in face of the approaching infidels.

Arthuria immediately wanted to go and see if Shirou is all right, but was stopped when Bedivere grabber her hand. "Let me go, Shirou might be-"

"He might be dead or might be not, we can't know for certain, what we do know is that we cannot abandon our positions, besides do you really think he would die that easily?" said Bedivere before she could finish her sentence.

"But even then!..." she wanted to argue more, but then her eyes came across another battalion of pagans coming from a different location. "Looks like we really can't leave this position alone." she said dejectedly as she began to move towards them.

"Wait, where do you think you are going now?"

"If Shirou can do it, then I should be able to do it as well, I will buy us some time." she said confidently as she darted away.

"Arthur…." he was about to growl something, but decided to follow her instead

'He is fast; I can hardly keep up with him.' Bedivere thought as they were reaching the enemy

Just 5 meters before reaching her target, Saber released a huge amount of prana to her feet and then stepped with such a force that it left cracks in the ground, the pagans could do nothing but watch dumbfounded as an accelerated Arthuria slammed into them with such force that it instantly killed many of them and broke the wooden handle of their spears. She continued for a while, before she twirled Gae Buidhe and slashed in a wide circle, cutting and dismembering anyone that was around her while still moving, she looked like a whirlwind of death. When she finally stopped on her feet there were at least a hundred corpses from where she entered to her current position, looking at the damage enemy as well she could say that she has done a lot of damage.

Bedivere only just caught up as he watched the ridiculous display of power with his mouth fallen agape.

…..

The pagan army was in a bad shape, the Cornwall army was successfully pushing them back and were losing quite a lot of their numbers, this had to do with the fact that the whole battalion was injured and the command structure was gone due to the fact that most of the chieftains were killed by Emiya. The soldiers of Emiya lost a few lives against them, but not as much as they would have suffered if he didn't stall them.

They were also disadvantageous in the fact that they were only infantry, so the armoured horsemen easily crushed and trampled over them. Kay was among them as he didn't leave with Arthuria and Bedivere, he was terrifying the pagans with his flaming sword, setting them on fire and making them scream as their flesh burned.

Amongst all this chaos a single shadow was moving, unseen by everyone it moved from one shadow to the next. Sometimes it stopped and observed a duel or two, sometimes it decided to directly interfere, like now.

A young looking knight was desperately trying to hold back a 2 meter tall pagan who was trying to crush him with his battle mace; the knight was barely holding back the man from crushing with his sword as it grinded against the thick wooden handle of his mace.

'He is quite good looking, so I guess his lift might be worth sparing~' she thought to herself, and made a simple shadow spike appear that impaled the large man in the heart. The knight suddenly fell to his butt as every force that was pressed on him was suddenly removed; he looked around confused wondering as to what happen.

'Fufu, I' am a merciful god~' the shadow mused to herself as it continued it's creeping.

As it noticed a streak of Red and Purple, she knew that she had reached her target, 'Now to get in position'. …

...

Emiya suddenly felt a presence enter the area where he and Sasaki were fighting, it was faint but it was definitely there, so Emiya knew that she had finally arrived and he wouldn't have to waste prana projecting a noble phantasm, the only reason he noticed her presence was because he was waiting for her, so he doubted that Assassin noticed anything.

He dodged and parried several more blows until the invisible shadow got right behind Sasaki. He knew that she was about to strike him, because that idiot made a fatal mistake, she emitted a malicious aura that even a completely oblivious and ordinary human would have felt. 'Goddamit woman, learn to mask your killing intent!' he cursed inside his mind, there was no doubt that Sasaki has noticed it with his A ranked Eye of the Mind skill.

Minasaki emerged from the shadow of Assassin in a striking position that allowed all pairs of her wings to be shot out if needed "Surprise~!", but Assassin was already turned back, swinging his Katana in a wide arc while doing so as he sensed her coming.

'Well, whatever we will just have to use this opportunity.' Assassin had briefly turned his back on him so he went to charge right towards him, but he didn't think he would be able to stop his strike from hitting Minasaki, so he was hoping that she would be able to defend somehow.

The katana was about to reach her, but she put her wings before it, Emiya didn't think it would help as those wings would most likely be cut through by the sword, but to his surprise a clang rang out as the wings blocked his blade. 'Hoh, looks like I misjudged the properties of those things.' the wing shifted and coiled and it grabbed a firm hold of his sword making him unable to pull it back, she shot a dark energy sting from her remaining wings that weren't occupied.

The twin swords were coming….

…_and so were the wings of darkness…._

…_the blue haired samurai had no way of dodging everything…_

…_he was sure to receive an injury from this exchange._

The samurai didn't even attempt to evade the coming blows, the 2 Chinese blades sunk deep into his back, piercing his heart and lung in the process, while Minasaki 4 shadowy appendages penetrated him in various points of his chest. "Fufu, how do you like it when I plunge deep inside you?"

Emiya internally facepalmed from the inappropriateness of the comment

"I guess this is a fitting end for a samurai who let his friend die…gah." he coughed and blood started flowing from his mouth 'Is he referring to Meia?' Emiya thought "But if I have to die here….." he suddenly regained momentum and kicked Minasaki off her feet, released hold of his blades and turned around his trademark position, holding his 150 cm long blade in a horizontal stand "…. then I will take your life with me, Archer!"

"_**Secret Technique: Tsubame Gaeshi!**_" came Assassins sure kill technique that would take his head, 3 beautiful and wide arcs coexisted momentarily at the same time for the sole purpose of killing him.

Emiya knew that he didn't have enough time to jump back or evade, he didn't have enough time for any of his stronger projections, so he just summoned the swords that he was most compatible with and put before his neck where Sasaki strike was aimed at.

_Clang Clang _

Metal hits metal once more, but the Chinese short swords couldn't withhold the power of this attack.

_Crack Crack_

Both of them were broken apart, and dissipated into tiny particles of prana.

'This is bad!' Emiya thought as the 3 strikes were still coming at his neck.

'_**My body is made out of blades**_.'

_Slash Cut Cut _

The flesh is cut and a crimson nectar starts seeping out from the neck of the _Red King_, his tall body crumbles to the ground as he quickly loses his consciousness_, the sword that lay on his back also cracked once more._

….

In the air Medea and Merlin continued their battle of spells, Medea shot another array of scatter beams while Merlin decided to shoot a lightning bolt towards her, both of their spell shields absorbed each others blow.

Caster suddenly felt a pain in her right hand, she looked down on it and saw her red command spells disappear that were present despite them not being servants anymore, it could only men one thing, Assassin lost. She turned to the location where he was previously fighting with Archer and he noticed his dead body on the ground, it was no surprise that he lost to one of the 3 knight class servants as he was just a mere Assassin, but what was shocking that he still managed to take down Archer with him despite that…..

Suddenly Archer's chest starts steadily moving as he resumed breathing once more.

….'No he was just injured, I need to finish him off myself.' She concentrated and then sent a telepathic order to all of her familiars that she previously hidden in reserve in case she needed them for this battle.

'Now let's see, should I just send all of them to Archer? No….I shall punish those annoying knights who dared to slay my chimeras as well.' she finished sending the order and came to her senses as a large boulder that Merlin lifted with his magic was now flying towards her.

"_**Tροψα!**_" She safely teleported out of it's way

_Clap Clap Clap_

She heard the sound of an amused Merlin hitting his hands together "Impressive, I didn't think you would be capable of a spell like that. "

"I can assure you that you will be in for plenty of surprises if you underestimate me, _**Αερο**_!" she sent the wind sickles towards him again.

"**Lyhyd Balpy!**"

"It's no use sorcerer, I already told you that you cannot shield against them….kuh!" her sentence was interrupted as something slashed her stomach open as her own wind sickle entered her, several more were coming, but she managed to dodge those.

"I may not be able to defend against them, but that doesn't mean that I can't redirect them."

"Bastard…" she put her hands to her wound and started the healing spell, in a few seconds it was completely fixed. As long as she isn't fatally injured she would be able to heal herself.

…

Minasaki was looking at Sasaki's corpse "Hmm, looks like he is finally dead, I was surprised that he was able to move after that." she moved her wings towards his head and stabbed one of her appendages into it "Well just in case, I don't want any more surprises today."

She walked over to Emiya's body and looked down at his gradually healing neck, the samurai failed to sever it completely because of one thing, the inside of his neck was filled with steel, swords to be precise, that were now knitting themselves together in order to repair the damage. She watched the process with a fascinated face. "I think I'm staring to like you more and more, darling kuhuhu." she said it out loud as she poked his cheeks.

_Hustle Hustle_

The sound of the grass being disturbed and running was heard by Minasaki.

"My my, they don't even attempt to be subtle these days." she said as she turned around and slashed her wings at whoever was coming behind her. She felt her wings sinking into the target and she knew that she had hit the target.

Hush

This is why she was surprised when a kick came to her and knocked her away, making her stumble awkwardly when she tried to get up, she had a fair amount of trouble as her body outside of her wings was rather delicate and wasn't really used to pain. "Itata, that hurt." her eyes widened as she seen a fist coming to finish the job with a frightening momentum. She barely managed to dodge it by sliding sideways; the fist impacted with the ground and shattered it in a few meter radius.

She raised her head and could finally take in the appearance of her assailant, it was a large man wearing nothing but a leather pants, his muscle and veins were bulging and his skin colour was noticeably red, his eyes though it was devoid of emotion or thought, like it was just some kind of puppet. It dumbly gazed at its hand that was pulverized in the previous blow, the bones and flesh could be seen on it, it was in a bad shape, but soon the bones realigned themselves and the skin had regrew on its hand.

"Regeneration huh…" she moved her vision to his stomach where she was sure that her attack connected, but there was no visible evidence to any injury "…so that's how survived it, what an annoying opponent."

He flexed it a few times before deciding he was good to go. He turned towards her and Minasaki was startled from the haste it took off.

Minasaki didn't make any attempt to dodge or block the blow, she simply disappeared into her own shadow, and instantly reappeared within the magic infused man's shadow, the dumb oaf didn't even realize that she was behind him.

"Regenerate this!" she said as her shadow wings cut of his head, then cut that head into even more tiny particles while it was still in the air. She also carved out his heart just for good measure and mercilessly crushed it while it was still beating. No, even this wouldn't be enough, if their regeneration was anything like the chimera then she would need to do way more damage than this, she thought.

She tore off a piece of her wing, and threw it above the man.

She then concentrated her power and smashed the shadow from above and the man's own shadow together, the body couldn't withstand the pressure it was forced to bear and it made many sickening noises as the bones shattered and the body became nothing more than a human paste. She continued the pressure for a few more seconds before releasing the hold on it, nothing humane was recognizable from the original body anymore, and it seemed that it couldn't regenerate anymore.

"Mission accomplished!" she dusted off her hands as she turned around…. only to notice several more of these man-chimera staring right at her, a quick count told her that there were 21 of them in total.

"Seriously? This is why I hate getting involved in fights…." They closed in on her, but all of them suddenly stopped and froze in their place like a puppet having its strings cut, from their shadows, beings of pure darkness had emerged they spread their wings of darkness and enveloped the men in their bodies. Their muffled screams could be heard as their life was sucked out of them, when the entities were done with their meal, they went back to their realm and left nothing but the very bones of their victims.

"I'm sorry, but this is what happens when you force my hand."

**Condemned to the Invaders**

This was her most powerful ability, although she wasn't even sure that she could call it her own, seeing how she didn't control the beings at all, she just merely invited them to a feast and they had accepted. She didn't know where the shadow entities came from or what the entities were themselves, she didn't really have a clear understanding of her own powers. But seeing how they don't leave anything but the bones after their work, she figured that it would be good as any counter to their regeneration.

She heard a coughing and she knew that Shirou had finished regenerating and woke up.

"What happened?" he asked while scratching his throat and noticing the large number of skeletal remains.

"Fufu nothing you need to worry about, some bad men just tried to hurt onii-chan while he was sleeping, so naturally eliminated them."

…..

Saber and Bedivere were facing off against a group of fifty pagans; the rest of them had long gone ahead and joined the main fight. Nobody charged from them and they seemed content to just keep them where they currently were, it seemed that their objective was to prevent further damage to the main troops so these 50 had sacrificed themselves for this goal. But they weren't going to let them do as they please.

She blasted off towards the wall of men that were trying to contain them, they tried to impale her by thrusting their spears forward, but she broke through just as easily as before, she made wide arc slash with her spear and a dozen of pagans fell dead, Bedivere similarly broke through on the other side although his kill count was considerably lower.

The remaining pagans steeled themselves, ready to sacrifice themselves, but it was not Arthuria or Bedivere that would be the end of them, it would be their own. A large shockwave was sent and all of them were sent flying as a massive man jumped into the fray, unbeknownst to both Bedivere and Arthuria this was a familiar to Medea that Minasaki had encountered on the other side of the battlefield.

"What in the gods name is that?" asked Bedivere as he watched the mans hand transform and shift, it grew larger and more thin, until it looked like a sword, a sword that seemed to be made out of bone and flesh.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" the beast of a man charged towards Bedivere with an incredible speed, the knight was forced to block the charge with his spear, as he did so he was pushed back by several feet. The man-chimera didn't let up and delivered a kick with his oversized leg to the knight's stomach, sending him flying.

"Bedivere!" Arthuria shouted for her comrade she tried to go and help him, but her way was also blocked by a similarly large man, this one was wearing a goat head. His hand also started morphing, but it didn't grow longer, instead it got more bulkier and darker in colour, then bone spikes erupted from it, it became something like a mace.

"Move aside or I will cut you down!" she declared as she was already charging towards it, she moved her spear to slay the monster, but to her surprise it jumped out of her reach then shot several tentacles out of it's mouth, that were now coiling around her arms and neck. The man-chimera then leaped back to her with its fist raised, ready to pulverize Arthuria. She just barely managed in time to cut off the tentacles and evade the massive blow. The next second the beast impacted with the ground and shattered it.

The man seemed to have its mace-hand stuck in the ground as he tried to pull it out, she naturally made use of this opportunity and darted towards the man-chimera like a bullet being released. The chimera noticed this, and knew that he was unable to avoid damage, so it moved in a way that his stuck hand would be severed, losing him a limb and freeing him at the same time. The limb of course didn't regenerate thanks to the effects of Gae Buidhe.

Now that it was free it tried to grab her with its other remaining hand, unsuccessfully as Arthuria moved her hand and spear incredibly fast and cut it off as well, there weren't much options left for the man-chimera, but then more tentacles came out of it's stumps and they tried to grabbed hold of Arthuria once more.

She was getting visibly annoyed with the tenacity of the monsters, she surged prana from her whole body, making the air around her crackle and glow blue from the amount she was releasing, the shockwave created by this act pushed back the tentacles, then she released all this energy to her feet and moved through the beast in on move, cutting it in half.

"Now time to help Bedivere….Tch" she was about to go, but 3 more man-chimera were approaching her.

Meanwhile while Saber was fending of the 3 man-chimeras, Bedivere was struggling to try and get up, he was thrown away and when he landed he severely hit his head, and now his ears were ringing and he felt extremely dizzy.

"Cough….where….am…I?" his consciousness wasn't clear yet to the head trauma he suffered, he tried to move his body, but it didn't respond to him.

_Stomp Stomp_

He heard heavy footsteps incoming, but in his deluded state he didn't know what it was, nor could he move his head to locate the source of it. The footsteps got closer and soon he heard low growling noise as the monster found his corpse. He was now starting to have a vague idea what was happening, especially since a zapping pain was inflicted to him as the monster pulled him up by the hair, until he came face to face with the monster.

"Guh…." his cries of pain was all that was needed to signal the man-chimera that he was alive; it readied his sword-hand to cut him down for good.

'Shit, now I'm in trouble. I have to do something or I will be done in for good!' his thoughts were racing as he considered all his options.

His eyes looked for a weapon, he didn't have his sword or spear, his gaze went to the ground and noticed something yellow in the grass, he know that it was the spear, he most likely lost hold of it when he hit the ground, it was no good as it was out of his reach.

Arthur won't help him since he was most likely also ambushed, otherwise he would already be here considering how fast he is.

The beasts hand was coming closer in slow motion. He was close enough to poke the man's eyes out, but he wasn't certain if that would stop the blow from coming or if the monster even felt any pain, so he couldn't do that. He looked to his belt and noticed a small combat dagger there; he realized that was his only option. He quickly drew it out and then instantaneously moved it above to the hand that was holding him by the hair, and cut through the tendons and muscles, forcing him to let go of him.

The beast just barely missed cutting his head off as he fell to the ground, he quickly moved towards the grass and picked up the yellow spear and with the same movement he threw the spear towards the monster, striking it right through its head.

It momentarily fell to the ground, before it began to twitch and try to stand up once more. The man-chimera had no use of its brain as their personality and thoughts were completely wiped out, they were nothing but simple machines that would obey whatever order Medea has given them and carry them out to the best of their abilities.

Bedivere of course quickly caught wind of the creature moving so he went towards it and pulled the spear, then launched an array of blows to various vital part of his body, stopping any further movement from it.

At the end he was panting heavily from the experience before deciding to ignore the pain so he could go and help Arthuria.

Meanwhile in the epicentre of the battlefield where the 2 armies' main forces were fighting, Kay was standing proudly upon the corpses of 15 man-chimeras. He was resting his weight on his sword as he muttered "Is….that….all…you…got!?" The pagan troops were visibly too scared to even go near him, while his comrades cheered him for his might and bravery.

….

Medea looked with a growing frown on her face as all of her man-chimeras were annihilated; it annoyed her that not even one of her targets was eliminated especially not that damned Archer. These chimeras took even more preparation to make than the regular ones, but all of them were ended so easily. That girl instantly killed 20 of them through some strange summoning magic, and that horsed knight cut them down like butter.

Nothing was going her way today, and she was sad to admit that she was losing the battle on all fronts; she would need to bring in her trump card, but to do that she would need to incapacitate this annoying sorcerer. She thought as she dodged another spell from Merlin.

'Time for me to use that, it will put me at risk as well, but if it pays off then it will be worth it and turn the tides of this battle.'

She launched many beams of light towards Merlin.

"Fool, don't you learn? Such spells are meaningless against me, **Faek Zhydd!**" he raised his spell barrier once more

'You are the fool, that was merely a distraction and you've fallen right for It.' she thought as she let out a smile then uttered her next spell word. "_**Tροψα!**_" and she teleported, not herself but Merlin himself to be right in front of her. But she wasn't done with just this "_**Ατλας!**_" and froze Merlin in place, since this was a spell that was affecting the air pressure itself; Merlin had no way of negating it with his magic shield.

The wizard was confused by the combination of the sudden shift in his location and the even more sudden feeling of weight on his body, by the time he realized where he was, a vile dagger was already coming towards him, a jagged dagger that seemed to threaten his very existence and looked like it was sucking magic itself into it.

_Thump Thump_

He immediately knew that whatever magic lay in that blade was bad news for him, but he was unable to dodge, he moved his arm forward to minimize any possible damaging effect it has. To his surprise before it reached his arm he felt his spell shield dispelling, then he immediately knew what the Witch plan was, but was too late to do anything about it.

The blade bit into his arm next, but it didn't do anything else besides erase the black runes that covered his body and made him revert back into normal state. Her next move would be the match deciding one; his spell shield was disabled so she would be able to kill him if she charged him with another laser beam. But instead of that the witch used another spell, due to the fact that this one took less time to prepare and was almost instantaneous "_**Κεραινο!**_" a storm of lightning enveloped him and he felt the burning pain of deadly electricity enveloping all of his body, it lasted only for a few seconds, but it was enough to drain him of all of his power and severely damage him. He was unable to maintain his levitation and fell to the ground.

But he still managed to survive the fall due to his inhuman ancestry, but was unable to move even a muscle as he was forced to watch as the Witch of Colchis started chanting a massive spell; several great purple magic circles appeared near hear and started spinning. Whatever she was casting he knew that it was taking a ridiculous amount of prana and the air itself was glowing around her thanks to his.

She was chanting so fast that Merlin was unable to make out any of the coherent words, the power around her grew and an aura filled of ancient mystery gathered around her. Lightning was crackling all around her and blue orbs of prana started to converge into her location.

The magic circles were now spinning even faster, and glowed with the intense colour of twilight, Medea's own magical reserves were quickly draining to fuel this powerful spell. To Merlin who was observing from below now realized that this was a summoning spell, and whatever she was summoning it was going to be something terrifying, far more terrifying than the demon he had previously summoned, he was scared to think what it could be.

_Zap Zap_

The electricity surged around her and then she knew that the spell was ready, so she pulled out a small object from her robes and released its true name to increase the effect and power of the spell.

"_**ARGON COIN!"**_

And a massive cloud of lightning and storms came out of her magical circles, the summoning was complete, now it was time to sit back and await the results.

Merlin suddenly had a suspicion and activated his golden eyes, his eyes widened at the sight he saw inside the cloud. And he prayed to the gods….

….because against that thing that was lurking inside those clouds….

…they would need every blessing they can get.

….

Emiya looked as a massive storm could came out of the grand magic that Medea has performed, every part of his instincts and battle experience were screaming at him that whatever was inside it was definitely bad.

He reinforced his eyes to get a better idea on what lay inside it, but his gaze couldn't penetrate the layer of thick clouds, but he could tell that something big was hidden inside them. He could also feel an overwhelming amount of prana in them and the smell of electricity.

"Ne Shirou-san what's that?" asked Minasaki

"I don't know, but we will find out soon enough."

The clouds moved closer to the main battlefield where the 2 sides were battling, it was evident to everyone that the army of Cornwall was winning. They went for another charge to push back the pagans even further, but then a massive lightning bolt came from the cloud, and then another and another, the battlefield was ravaged by a massive barrage of lightning bolts, that spared no one, they vaporized and electrocuted pagan and christian alike. Emiya looked at the horrifying loss of life and one thought came to his mind.

"I have to do something." it was obvious that whatever was in the clouds were causing those unnatural lightning bolts to occur, so he should removed them as soon as possible.

"Eh, how are you going to do that, darling? It is just a cloud after all." asked a confused Minasaki

Emiya readied his bow and took aim "It isn't about the clouds Minasaki, it's about the thing that is resting inside it, I'm going to drive it out." he shot a few dozen red arrows into the clouds, they weren't noble phantasm or anything like that, but with them reinforced and the speed they were shot at they were still life threatening to most things. They entered the clouds and he knew that they must have hit as the form inside the clouds began shifting.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅"A booming and terrifying voice could be heard even from several kilometres away from the battlefield, it was a powerful and ancient roar that drew the attention of everyone within the battlefield, and nobody was able to ignore such a primordial presence. Within the stormy clouds a massive jet blue figure had emerged, making everyone's eyes who was watching widen with both fear and awe, there was no way that mortals wouldn't fear and wouldn't worship such a beast.

"Holy fuck….." was the only thing Emiya could say as he realized what the creature was that he has just shot.

It was a phantasmal beast.

No, not just any kind of phantasmal beast, it was the strongest kind of phantasmal beast.

"A goddamned dragon." he cursed under his breath.

"Well nice job drawing that out, darling. I think I shall be sitting this one out." Minasaki said as she disappeared into a shadow, Emiya was so out of it that he completely failed to register how blatantly he was abandoned by one of his supposed allies.

The dragon didn't ignore the fact that it was attacked by a mere mortal and raised its massive jaws that had at least a thousand blue teeth on it and started gathering its power.

'This is bad.' Dragons are creatures of pure magical phenomena; their very existence is mystery, incapable of existing in the modern world. They were the pinnacle of phantasmal beasts, the extensions of the world itself.

Emiya knew that what was coming was really bad; no one in their sane mind would willingly want to go against such a creature.

He raised his hand and channelled all of his power into it, due to him being already low on reserves this act caused great strain on him and he was forced to stabilize his arm with his other hand.

_Dragons…._

_Breath attacks, their very lungs act like spiritual worlds themselves; they are capable of breathing out pure condensed prana which results in various mystical phenomena depending on the type of dragon and its age. _

He gathered every knowledge he had on these mythical beasts; he would need all of them if he was to survive.

The type of dragon is identifiable by their size and colour, 'This one is a blue dragon of moderate size which means that it is a lightning dragon that is probably of the monstrous category according to the classification of phantasmal beasts, which is the weakest category. Good at least I'm not having bad enough luck to face off against a millennia old divine dragon.' he silently thanked whatever gods that were watching over him for this fact.

"_**I have created over a thousand blades.**_" Emiya added another line of his area for increased effect and to help his concentration, he would need every advantage he could get against this monster.

A purple light was starting to gather in his palm, and the energy gathered inside the dragons mouth looked like it was reaching maximum capacity, the electricity was constantly discharging from it and the air was shivering from it.

The Dragon shot forward a massive lightning ball followed by an even bigger lightning beam, not even the greatest magus would be able to produce such a magnificent mystery, the lightning spell was just that amazing. Even the worlds top 100 mages gathered together wouldn't be able to come up with something even close to the power this thing has.

It would reach him in a mere second, but a mere second was all Emiya needed to activate his defences.

"**Rho Aias!**" The seven petals of fiery heavens came into existence and the moment it did so it immediately collided with the mass of prana.

As purple clashed with blue, they emitted so much energy that they painted the sky in their colours; everyone stopped their battles to watch this wonderful display. No human would be able to draw its eyes from such beautiful clash of raw powers.

_Crack_

A smashing sound was heard as the first petal was broken, pain immediately shot through his arm, but he had no choice but to bear with it, he could already feel the second petal breaking.

Each of these petals is supposed to be as strong and durable as a fortress wall, the fact that they were being so easily broken through was just a testament to the ancient power of this mighty beast.

_Crack_

The second petal broke as well, blood gashed from his arm, but he ignored it, he knew that Caliburn would heal it anyway.

_Crack Crack_

The third and the fourth broke as well, and the power of the energy ball didn't seem to be decreasing at all, it still continued to grind against his shield with all of its strength. On the other side of the shield he could see the ground becoming charred and ashen as the pure lightning storm evaporated everything that it could get its hands on.

_Crack_

Broke the fifth petal, the combination of the pain and the overuse of prana made him slump to his knees, but he still kept his hand up despite this.

Crack

Broke the sixth petal, it seemed to be losing in speed and power now and the ball was getting smaller, surely it would not break through the seventh petal, right? The orb of lightning spun some more, before becoming the size of a baseball ball, then disappearing completely. The seventh layer despite however cracked it has become has managed to hold its ground.

Emiya breathed a sigh of relief, and then suddenly felt a gush of wind and a deafening roar. He looked up and he had gazed into the abyss of death itself.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" the dragon had decided to ram it's whole body into the shield, seeing that it's breath attack failed, Emiya could only curse as he tried to get his legs up, but he was only rewarded with a jolt of pain.

He knew that the seventh petal won't hold against the beast, it would slam into him and kill him.

He tried to think out of any possible way out of this, using his Eye of the Mind skill, but he couldn't figure out anything out.

Nothing that he would do would make it in time.

'Is this it?' the question rang arose in his mind as he seen the dragons maw approaching, he looked into it and he was an endless blue surge of prana inside it.

The dragon collided with the last petal, and it held it's ground for several seconds…..

_Crack._

Yet even that was finally broken, Emiya had closed his eyes and momentarily resigned himself to his fate.

But then he suddenly felt something push his body away, and the next thing he knew was that he was on the ground….alive.

Someone had saved him by pushing him out of the way, but who could it be? He turned around to see the braided knight, Bedivere standing over him.

"Are you all right, my king?" he asked concerned for his well being.

_Drip Drip_

Emiya heard a sound that has frozen his soul

"Bedivere you….."

He looked towards his other side that he was frantically trying to hide.

_Drip Drip_

More blood fell and Emiya already realized what was happening. The place where Bedivere's hand used to be is nothing but a mere chunk of flesh now.

"…your hand." Yes, the dragon has taken his hand while he was trying to save Emiya. It was his fault and a wave of guilt came over him.

"I'm sorry, if only I would have been stronger, you wouldn't have-"

"Please do not be concerned with me; it is the duty of a knight to sacrifice himself for his liege when needed."

Yeah that's right, since he was a king now, it was only natural for his subordinates to die for him, right? Emiya hated to think like this, but he knew that's how things worked, the life of a soldier is not worth as much as the life of a king in this era. He was overcome with a slight amount of anger and gritted his teeth together.

_Slap_

He felt a sharp pain as Bedivere's remaining hand hit him in the cheek.

"Get yourself together, if you died here none of us would be able to kill that thing, saving you was the best possible choice to also save all of us!" he said while gesturing towards the dragon in the skies who has now resumed sending lightning bolts towards the armies.

Bedivere was right and he knew it. To save his people he would need to kill that dragon, if he didn't thousands would die and even more once the pagan armies marched into his country.

Killing a dragon was a common feat amongst the Knights of the Round Table, so how hard could it be to kill one?

Dragon is in the air, flying too fast to hit it with regular arrows.

'I would need something that is capable of hitting despite these conditions.'

Hrunting, the black blade of Beowulf came to his mind, but he quickly discarded it.

_The dragon is a pure magical being, Hrunting would be unable to cause harm to it due to its nature. _

_Static_

The memory of him fending off the cursed spear of Lancer came to him and so he knew his answer.

He stood up and raised both of his hands as if he were holding an invisible spear

"**Trace on!**" He began to recreate the spear through each of the steps, but he was constantly zapped from his circuits, they couldn't tolerate their overuse for much longer.

"_**Unknown to death…**_"

"…_**Nor known to life.**_" With the help of his aria his mind became clear enough to focus at the projection he was working on.

In the next second the red spear appeared in his hands.

"The cursed spear of Cú Chullain? Don't tell me you intend to shoot it down using it!?" Of course Bedivere was aware that in the legends of the legendary spearmen he had annihilated entire armies with a single throw of his spear, but he doubted that his liege came close in power to the Hound of Ulster.

He held the spear for a second, releasing even more prana into it, and then he jumped into the air, imitating the blue knight. He got into throwing position; the cursed lance was now shaking and glowing with energy, waiting to be unleashed on its prey.

"_**Gae Bolg: Soaring Spear that Strikes with Death!**_" He threw the mighty spear and thus activated its true function as a weapon.

It flew twice as fast as the speed of sound; soon it became a red beam of menacing energy, heading relentlessly towards the dragon. The dragon sensed the imminent threat and barely managed to dodge it by twisting its body out of the way.

'Gae Bolg in its true function does not posses the 'always strike the heart' property, but that is not needed…..'

_The spear that was supposed to be dodged turned around and impacted the dragon on its back, already trying to weave its way through its heavy defences._

'…as this spear will always surely strike its target.' Yes, this was the reason Emiya had chosen this weapon, it was similarly unavoidable to Hrunting, but even more powerful and capable of breaking its powerful protection.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" the dragon cried out from having its back forcefully drilled through by a noble phantasm. The dragon of Colchis while still powerful among phantasmal beast, it was nothing compared to other dragons appearing in myths and legends. And surely its mysteries and concepts were of no match against the legendary spear whose tales told its power for 2 millennia. It was a simple battle between concepts, and the concept of Gae Bolg was much stronger than the dragon's.

_Crack_

The dragon's natural hide cracked apart, not being able to withstand the weight and power of Gae Bolg and the spear forcefully broke through it, piercing its flesh, upon entering into its massive body, it split into 30 red barbed wires and those 30 barbed wires split into another 30, this process was repeated until the whole dragons body was being impaled by thorns that were coming from Gae Bolg. The thorns moved and infected its whole body, piercing and damaging most of it's organs, even if the dragon survived this battle it would still die in a few hours because of the internal damage it has received.

The main part of the spear was still pushing the dragon down, and soon it wasn't able to stay on the sky anymore, and it impacted the battlefield, sending several soldiers flying to their death.

_Not enough_

Yes, it was not enough; the dragon was still able to move and would fly back into the sky if something was not done. He really doubted that he would have the reserves to project and use another Gae Bolg.

'I need to do something.'

_Dragon Slaying weapons_

_Gram and Arondight are not usable; insufficient prana_

That leaves only one possible weapon….

He began to trace once more, all 27 of his circuits rejecting the order, multiple waves of pain assaulted him because of this, and his circuits were signalling that they couldn't take the abuse for much longer. He had no choice but to continue his projection regardless, if everything goes well this would be his last for the battle.

_Static Static_

"Have withstood pain….to create many weapons." His circuits gave him a shock one last time, before resigning themselves and completing the unreasonable order.

A silver-grey two handed sword came into existence.

He didn't waste any time and just rushed towards the dragon, that was still recovering from its fall. It was the perfect chance to do what he was about to do.

The red knight moved and brandished the great sword against the right wing of the dragon, most normal weapons would break trying to damage the dragon's thick scales, but this sword was different as it cut off the base of its wing like it was nothing more than fragile wood.

This was the passive effect of Balmung, sword of the hero Siegfried who used it to kill the evil dragon Fafnir, due to this deed, the sword was granted dragon slaying properties, which greatly increased its damage against those of the dragon kind.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" Unsurprisingly the lightning dragon let out another cry, as this sword was like poison to its existence. It tried to crush the offending knight with its front limbs; Emiya was still capable enough to dodge these attacks, however massive they were.

It didn't matter what it tried to do anymore, Emiya had accomplished his goals and removed its flying capability, now the beast was ready for the slaying.

….

_Several minutes before the dragon was cast to the ground._

Merlin was regaining some of his muscle movements, his natural healing abilities, taking care most of the life threatening damages, but that of course didn't mean that he wasn't in a shitload of pain at the moment.

He knew what the thing the witch had summoned was, and he realized how much trouble it will be to slay it. If the witch herself attacks them as well, then the Cornwall army will be most certainly doomed. So Merlin wasn't given the leisure to just continue lying and wait for the battle to be over. He had to do something about that witch, however hard it would be in his battered state.

He raised his hand and gathered power into it. "**Cofkufy!**" a lightning bolt that was weaker than his usual left his hand and shot towards Medea, it was deflected by the barrier which she still had on. But that didn't matter as the purpose of this attack wasn't to damage her, but to draw her attention towards him.

She turned around and floated closer to him, "Oh my I didn't think that you would be still alive and conscious after that. Well whatever, if you were smart enough to just keep laying there you would have survived this battle. But now I have no other choice than to finish you off." Her cloak opened and beneath it many orbs of light had gathered, all of them were brimming with energy.

'Heh, fell right for it.' the witch didn't know that she was playing right into Merlin's hand.

The spell was released and all of them went to end the wizard's life.

Just before they collided with him, the wizard muttered one more spell word.

"**Zhydd Kloef!**"

Dust and other rubbles filled up the area where the wizard rested just a second ago. Medea turned around thinking that she had finished off the annoying man. But she was wrong as she soon found out when a sword went through her back and made its exit through her stomach. She didn't need to turn around to know who it was, Merlin somehow survived her attack.

She quickly teleported away from him before she would receive another blow. The witch was now able to take in the form of the man, and she noted that all of his previous injuries have been somehow healed, the tattoos were also back, but now they were no longer black and instead were glowing with a blue light.

"How did you…"

"Quite simple, I formed a spell draining aura around myself that breaks down any spell it comes into contact with into raw prana, and then I used that raw prana to completely heal myself. You have nothing to blame, but your foolish desire to finish me off so badly. "

"Hmph, it changes nothing you are still no match for me and your comrades will be devoured by my dragon." She said while gesturing towards the blue beast that was now raining lightning bolts all over the place.

"I wouldn't be so sure, after all I' am now aware of the most efficient way to deal with you. That shield of yours doesn't defend against physical attacks at all, even if it can block the most powerful sorceries; it is meaningless if I can break through it with a mere sword strike."

"And you would really result to such methods? You disgust me." The concept that a mage would stain their hands to do something was beneath her.

"Naturally, after all in the end what matters is who wins and who loses, it doesn't matter what methods you use to achieve victory as long as you succeed."

"**Solinomo!**"(Attack power up)

"**Zininomo!**"(Agility up)

"**Loninomo!**"(Defense up)

Merlin muttered 3 magical worlds that raised his physical stats and hefted his sword and launched towards Medea.

"Fool do you really think that a brash method like that will work against me? **Ατλ-gha!"** It would have been easy to deal with someone closing in on her by simply using Atlas, but she had made the mistake to look into the wizards golden eyes, and when she did so she felt a wave of pain assaulting her brain and her hands started shaking. 'Magical paralysis?'

She was confused, eye effects like that shouldn't affect her as they would normally be taken care of by natural magical resistances. Unless…..

…..Unless they were mystic eyes. She didn't have the leisure to calmly analyze the situation as Merlin was already right in front of her and made a sword slash. Medea released a large amount of prana from her body to counter the paralysis effects and flew backwards to avoid the blow, but it was done too late and the sword bit off a piece from her shoulder.

She cringed from the pain, before teleporting farther away from him. She moved her free hand into her robes and took out a small vial with a red liquid inside it. She opened the bottle and quickly drank its contents. Both her stomach and shoulder wound healed after she did this. The Witch of Betrayal wouldn't be defeated this easily.

…

A hundred arrow shots could be heard around the battlefield as the Cornwall troops tried to help their King against the fearsome beast; needless to say the arrows did nothing against the beast's scales and simply bounced off it.

The dragon tried to crush the red knight with its legs many times, but it failed in hitting him, it only ended leaving massive claw marks in the landscape.

Soon it realized that if it simply swipes with its legs instead of trying to crush him, he will have an easier chance in hitting him. But soon it realized that it was a bad idea, as Emiya simply jumped when the leg came for him, and drew a slash against the limb that was below him. It easily went through its scales just as before and drew blood from the beast.

Suddenly there was a war cry and the sound of horse galloping. It was Kay riding his horse towards the dragon, flaming sword in hand. He was going right towards the dragons head, every onlooker thought that it was a foolish move since it would be easy for the dragon to eat him or fry him if he did that.

And just as the onlookers thought, the dragon was already moving its massive head towards the charging knight.

But to everyone's surprise including the dragon, Kay simple jumped off his horse and landed right atop the dragon's head. He quickly started stabbing, but soon he found out that his sword wasn't large enough to completely pierce through the dragon's skull. Nevertheless this caused the dragon quite a bit of pain, so it started trashing around to get the swordsman off. But this didn't work as Kay held into his sword firmly, which was still stuck inside the dragon.

The dragon was still not helpless despite this and simply moved onto the next best possible move, which was to release electricity from its body.

_Zap Zap _

Kay had no idea what was coming, he couldn't have know. He was foolishly still holding onto his sword when the dragons skin started glowing and sparks were coming from it. It travelled through every part of its body and then soon enough it reached the head area where Kay was. The many volts started to fry Kay's body and he cried out in pain, he wanted to jump off the dragon, but horrified found out that his hand couldn't leave his sword.

The obvious cause of this was that the electricity that was now flooding his body, made his muscles involuntarily contract themselves, which resulted in his sword hand fiercely gripping his sword, against his own will. But since Kay had no idea what electricity was or how it worked, he of course had no idea what was happening and was in the danger of being roasted, if he couldn't find some way to save himself soon.

A shadow flew over to the dragons head, the electricity zapped her, but she just ignored it, her demonic resistances made her able to withstand this much. She walked over to the knight and noted that he has already fallen unconscious; she moved all her 8 wings and used some to take the sword out from the dragon and others to lift the body of the knight. When she was done with both, she simply jumped off from the dragon and shadow stepped away to safety, while carrying Kay.

Emiya now couldn't damage the dragon, because if he did then he would suffer the same fate as Kay, so he was forced to dodge blows from an overgrown electrified lizard. But Arthuria didn't have those kinds of problems, her magical resistance was high enough to completely nullify this petty magical electricity and lightning, that was coming from the creature.

The dragon tried to claw at her with its electrified paw, but that was a foolish mistake on its part, as she merely cut off the beast fingers that tried to touch her, with a flick of her yellow spear. Even if Gae Buidhe wasn't a dragon slaying noble phantasm, it was a _still_ a noble phantasm, and Arthuria could do a lot of damage with it if she used it in combination with her prana burst.

Then it tried to bite Saber's head off next, it opened its massive jaws, only to have the attack blocked by the small girl who was holding her spear in a vertical position. The girl was pushed back due to the sheer size of the creature, but what was more concerning was the fact that it was charging another breath attack.

She wasn't certain if her resistance could counter a direct blast from that, so she needed to get away from it, but was unable to as the dragon was still pushing its head towards her spear, driving her even further back.

The answer to her problems came in the form of a flying yellow spear, it was the other Gae Buidhe that Shirou traced, Bedivere decided that losing an arm wasn't going to stop him from helping and threw it towards the beast. It flew straight into the creature's eye, and pierced through it.

It stumbled back from the pain and allowed Saber to get away from it, but she still delivered a slash to its jaw while she was at it.

Emiya moved forward, this was the time.

He knew that his body couldn't last for much longer, so he would need to deliver the finished blow right now. Balmung was made to strike the dragon once again, he wanted to cut off the neck or to deal enough damage to it that it would lead to suffocation. But the dragon saw his attempt and despite still being in pain from having its eye pierced out, it quickly spun and swatted Emiya away with its massive tail like he was a fly.

The dragons remaining one eye was positively glowing with rage and moved towards Emiya, Saber tried to do something, but not even she could stop such a large moving object when it was moving with its full speed, her futile lance stabs were ignored by the creature.

Emiya barely recovered himself only to see a massive claw come for his life, he quickly brought up Balmung and it cut deeply into the flesh, despite this move saving Emiya's life, it put him into a whole new danger altogether.

_Zap Zap_

Yes, Emiya was now being tortured by waves of electricity, so he was forced to let go of Balmung and roll sideways.

The electric attacks didn't do his already exhausted body much good and he felt that he could hardly control his body anymore and his head was being assaulted by a massive dizziness, in short: he felt like shit. The dragon made use of the fact that he no longer had that disgusting weapon and charged a breath attack.

It moved its neck to draw in some power, an orb of energy started to gather at the tip of its mouth, far larger than any other before.

_Static _

Emiya tried to project a weapon to defend himself, but gravely found out that he was unable to do so, but he already knew this as he made Balmung, expecting it to be his last projection for this battle, this was nothing more than an act of desperation.

He couldn't do anything now and not even Saber, Bedivere, Kay or even Minasaki would be able to stop that attack from being released.

He almost lost hope, when suddenly he noticed a glowing area in the dragon's chest that looked like it bursted from the inside out. It didn't take much to figure out even in his delirious state that that was the spot where Gae Bolg exited through the dragon's body.

Which mean that it was a vulnerable spot that would allow him to lay damages to the dragon's insides if he had a weapon.

_Tug_

Another headache assaulted him, which made him remember something that he had forgotten.

Yes, the golden blade, Caliburn was still resting faithfully on his back.

He pulled the sword out, but something didn't feel right.

_Static_

It was as if the sword was trying to reject him.

_Crack Crack_

He noted that almost the whole sword was now covered in ever growing cracks, though he wasn't sure if this was not just a hallucination that came to him due to the state he was in, he couldn't imagine that the golden sword would be breaking apart for no reason.

So he ignored it, and ran forward with all the remaining the strength he could muster. He reached the crack inside the dragons scales, from the indication of the blue glow that was coming from the wound, it was probably leading right to the dragons lung that supplied its breath attacks, the massive amount of magical energy that was escaping through the hole almost made him choke, but he steeled himself as he didn't have any more time left.

He swung the golden sword right into the crack and shouted out its name "**Caliburn!**"

A golden glow that promised victory began to fill the dragon from the inside out, as Caliburn unleashed its true power inside the creature.

Golden glow was coming out even from the dragon's mouth, which was now crying from the constant pain that was killing him from the inside.

_Crack Crack_

All of a sudden while Caliburn was still releasing its light, it broke apart into 3 separate pieces, ending the light it was emitting. But the light was not needed anymore as the damage that was already done was more than enough to finally kill the dragon. The golden blade accomplished its last task before dying.

The dragon fell without a voice, and stopped moving. Everyone watched with wide eyes how the strange creature was destroyed.

Emiya was barely conscious enough to hear a shout from his troops: "Dragonslayer! The king has slain the dragon!" Before succumbing to all of his pains and finally collapsing, Caliburn no longer healing him, his life was now in a grave danger.

…..

Medea felt the connection between the dragon and her get erased, and she knew that the impossible was done. Someone slew a dragon.

She looked around the battlefield, and she came across the red knight, just before he fell into the ground as well. "Damn that Archer." she cured under her breath before beginning to teleport farther and farther away.

There was little reason to stay in this location anymore, the battle was clearly lost, Assassin was dead, the Chimeras were dead, all the other mythical creatures including the mightiest of them the dragon, were dead. The remaining troops were also in bad shape and for some odd reason reinforcements were not coming.

Medea was a smart enough woman to know when a situation is hopeless and when to cut her losses. So she made her way to escape, she would go back to Wessex and rebuild everything, she would gather an even stronger army and crush that damned Archer once and for all.

But before she could fully make her escape the annoying wizard came at her once more.

"Don't think I'm going to let you escape."

"Oh but you will." she calmly stated and raised a massive pillar of stone from the earth, which blocked Merlin's way and vision of her. When Merlin finally got around the pillar, he annoyingly noted that the witch completely disappeared. But in fact she had just covered herself in prana, hiding her presence while continuing to safely teleport and fly away.

…..

"Let's go, Jeremiah." said a raven haired, amethyst eyed boy to a dark green haired man. Both of them were observing the battle from the beginning in a safe location.

"But my lord, didn't you want to watch the battle?"

"This battle has already reached its conclusion, a conclusion that was obvious from the beginning. An army whose commander doesn't value them and willingly abandons them at the first hint of a loss was doomed to fail to begin with."

_Rustle Rustle_

The nearby bushes were disturbed as a figure walked out from the forest.

"Your majesty, I have annihilated all the pagan reinforcements and support troops as you have ordered." the figure bowed to the boy while saying this

"Good, we are finished here. We will continue to the north where we will gather more allies to our side."

And the 3 figures disappeared from the area with this

…..

**Author Notes: Whelp, this was a severely long chapter that got out of hand several times and grew way bigger than I originally planned it to be. I had restarted this chapter several times for various reasons, many of the original scenes were cut out or remade completely. This battle was originally set in a battleground where Cornwall troops were defending the area within a castle, but then I realized that would have been too easy so I scratched it. Then I had an area surrounded with forests, but scratched that as well since Emiya would have just burned the forest on the pagans, solving everything. Which resulted in a more or less open field area for the battleground.**

**Sasaki was also going to survive this battle in the original draft, but then I thought about what I would use him for in the case he survived, and I couldn't really find any use for him, so I just let him die in this chapter instead.**

**The dragon was the final boss of this arc, I bet many of you thought it was going to be Medea, but nope she is going to _survive_ her own arc and come into the next arc. As for Medea summoning a dragon, she actually has an EX-ranked noble phantasm that is capable of summoning dragons, she just didn't use it in fate/stay night because she doesn't know any spells that are capable of summoning phantasmal beasts. Anyway I thought that a dragon would be a lot more heroic boss and worthy for an Arthurian setting.**

**Merlin is canonically a half-demon, and in his legend he was given birth similar to Jesus Christ, virgin mother except instead of a god, an Incubus impregnated his mother, for this reason he was branded as a possible anti-christ. So due to his heritage, summoning a greater demon would be nothing for him. **

**Bedivere lost his hand after some time in his legend and proceeded to become a one-handed badass. I just figured that this would be a good place to cut off his hand, it will only make him strive to be even stronger.**

**I also finally figured out what sword to give to Saber, seeing how she obviously isn't going to get Excalibur this time. Here are a few hints if you want to guess:**

**-Its from a video game**

**-It is a two handed sword of strange design**

**-It has both a dark and a light side**

**-It reacts to the person that is wielding it**

**-It may or may not whisper things to the wielder**

**-It is haunted by a sorrowful spirit**

**Next chapter we will see more Yukari, Emiya won't be doing much action seeing that now Caliburn is broken, he will take more time to heal. Most of the action will be coming from the Holy Magic Sect side and their encounters against the remaining pagans. It won't be as long of a chapter as this one(I hope) Also excuse me for any typo or spelling mistakes I have, due to the length of this chapter it was harder for me to check everything, and there may be quite a lot of them that I haven't noticed.**

**Anyway tell me how you felt about this chapter, since I'm quite uncertain and dissappointed with how some of my scenes came out.**

**Also shameless advertisement: The fanfic that I work on as a beta, A Tale of Swords and Scales will be resuming updates shortly. If you want to read another fanfic where powerful and bored reality-warpers play games that involve entire worlds, then be sure to check it out.**

**Answer Corner:**

what story is Meia and Minasaki from? I searched T.A.B.A. and their names, but I could not find anything.

**If you don't know about TABA, that just means you lead a lot healthier life than I do. (It is Taimanin Asagi Battle Arena, I warned you)**

Did Nero became the Emperor of Rome... again? Will Shirou bend knee and swear fealty to the Roman Empire as a Vassal Kingdom?

**Nope, not yet, I'm just setting up future arcs this early, she is still just beating the barbarian hordes back and gaining power. It will probably happen several years in seeing as it is a mid-tier event/arc and Emiya wouldn't be able to handle it in their current state without it ending badly for them. I have several events planned, but sadly most of them are either high or mid tier events, so I'm kind of lost what to do after the following 2 events, maybe I just bring in a mid tier event early. Anyway this fic will take place over several years, characters will get older, situations will change and what not. It is not really a speed conquest, seeing that maintaining hold over a lot of lands forcefully will end badly for any pieces, not to mention that most armies and factions can't make any moves during winter otherwise they would lose their soldiers to the weather. Sure just taking out the pieces would be a simple way for a speed conquest, but that isn't really possible due to the power level of these characters as Homura will learn it in some chapters. **


	8. Chapter 8

**I do not claim ownership over any of the characters, locations or terminology appearing in this fanfic except for those of my own creations, everything belongs to their respective owners.**

**Remember when in the last chapter's author notes I said that this chapter is going to be a short one? Ha-ha, turns out it would actually be my longest chapter so far, I estimate it to be around 30-40k words when completed, with this in mind I have decided to split the chapter into 2 parts both for the sake of pacing and easier reading as well as because I haven't published a chapter in a while, anyway while reading keep it in mind that this is in only 1/3 of the full chapter.**

**Chapter 8: Cursed Knight**

After the dragon was slain the battle was quickly ended due to the fact that the pagan army lost their morale when they witnessed the might of Cornwall and it's king and due to the fact that their 'goddess' has abandoned them. No additional reinforcements were coming, so they were easily eliminated or captured.

While the troops were eliminating the remaining threats, Emiya, Kay and Bedivere were dragged away from the battlefield due to the fact that they all needed urgent medical attention. Kay received a few light burns, but didn't suffer any major damage thanks to his natural magical resistance which absorbed most of the possible harm.

Bedivere was in a more immediate danger since he was on the verge of bleeding out from his now missing arm. They managed to stop the bleeding in time, but his hand on the other hand wasn't recovered, it was most likely eaten by the dragon. He was faced with a situation that he would have to live off his whole life with only a single hand, which would greatly handicap his abilities as a knight and a soldier.

Emiya didn't look wounded or injured in any way, yet his life was in danger from the inside, he was having a heavy fever and constantly sweating, he was also moving and groaning in his sleep like he was in tremendous pain. He was in the state of complete prana and circuit exhaustion again, and now since he didn't have Caliburn nothing was remedying this problem. He was in an actual danger as it wasn't uncommon for modern mages who overused their magic to die.

She wiped his forehead another time with a drenched towel, while sporting a worried look on her face.

_Creak_

The wooden door was opened and in stepped Merlin carrying something in his hand. It was a bottle, a bottle whose contents Saber immediately recognized for she was made to drink it after all. She got up from her seat so fast that she knocked the chair off its balance. "Merlin, you can't be thinking of making him drink that as well!"

"Sure am I, because he is currently dying and I know that the causes somehow have to do with him using up the od inside his body, even if I do not know the exact causes of the reason why he is having such a strong response to it. So boosting his inner prana reserves would most likely solve the issue. Besides I'm interested to see what kind of effects this would have on our king." he smiled mischievously.

"You…bastard, you are only interested in experimenting on him, aren't you?" she accused him

"There is nothing wrong with having some ulterior motives, my dear Arthuria." he moved closer towards the bed, but Saber blocked him.

"I will not allow you to use it, we both know that substance is a dangerous substance to humans, we do not know what might happen to him if we make him drink it in his current condition. Find another way!"

"We do not have enough time to do that, so I insist." his eyes flared golden for a second while he said this

"Your tricks won't work on me, _Wizard_." she said spitefully

"Tch, fine have it your way, I guess I'll go back to my workshop and try to think up something."

"I'm glad we have come to an understanding." she gave a small smile as she walked to the door to let Merlin out

"**Xibi!**" she suddenly felt that she couldn't move, her legs were frozen…in solid blocks of ice.

"Heh, did you really think that I would just agree like that?" Merlin quickly used this chance to run towards Emiya and make him drink the red liquid.

Arthuria broke out of the ice blocks a second later and immediately delivered a jab to Merlin. "Damned Wizard, how dare you!?" she asked while shaking him with her hands

"Calm down, now that he drank it there is nothing else we can do but wait and see the results."

…..

Emiya suddenly found himself inside his own world, Unlimited Blade Works. He didn't know why he was here, for how long he was here or how he got here. He immediately noticed that he was unable to just dispel the reality marble and go back to the real world like he always did, which meant that he was probably dreaming right now.

So with nothing better to do he started wandering around in his world, waiting for the dream to end. He occasionally picked up a sword or two, analyzed their history then put them back into their place. He looked into the sky and the ever turning gears were still there as always, but in the distance he saw something that shouldn't be found in this world.

There was a raging black storm in the distance, creating massive bolts of lightning, it was moving towards his area. He didn't know why it was inside his world or what did it mean, but he knew that it was probably the reason he was inside this dream.

He began to move towards it, but he noticed that 3 swords appeared in front of him as if waiting for him to pull them out and use them for their intended purpose.

Balmung the silvery great sword that he remembered wielding before he fell

The second sword was the sword of the sun, Gram. The very sword that was used as a prototype for the holy sword Caliburn

And the third was a blade that was tainted almost pitch-black. The once holy and sister sword to the great Excalibur was now nothing more than a demonic sword, blackened by the deeds Lancelot has committed with it in his life.

All 3 of them had one thing in common, they were dragon slaying swords. He had an ominous feeling so he picked up Gram and decided to take it with him into the storm. It was the oldest of the 3 swords; therefore its concepts and abilities were also the strongest as a noble phantasm.

As he was reaching the location of the storm he began to hear sounds, the sounds of battle. He didn't question why he was hearing this as this was only a dream; he proceeded to go into the center of the dark storm. And when he did so he was greeted with a strange phenomenon.

_Slash_

_Gash_

_Stomp _

The battle was still going inside it, ghost apparitions of pagans and defenders killing each other. He found out that he couldn't interact with them as all of them simply passed through him if he attempted to do so.

Seeing as he couldn't do anything with them at all, he proceeded to go into the center of this storm. As he was getting closer into it he noticed that the land was getting more ruined and larger cracks started appearing, soon he saw several rocks, simply floating in the air and the cracks now glowed with a blue light.

He followed the glowing cracks, hoping that it would lead him to whatever was causing this phenomena. The red knight walked for several minutes tracing the crack back to its originating point and he knew that he reached it when he heard a massive but familiar roar.

„▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅"Somehow the dragon that he was battling in the real world was now inside his reality marble. He didn't know what to make of this as this has never happened before. The former counter guardian also didn't understand why there was a massive hole in this part of his marble. All the cracks were leading back to this hole, he moved closer to the hole to get a look into its contents, and there he noticed a massive blue swirl.

From the sensation he was getting from it, he could only think that it was prana. Why was there a crater sized prana well inside his personal world? That is a question that he couldn't think about any more as the dragon roared once more, signalling that he was spotted.

The dragon started to fly and move towards Emiya. 'Looks like it wants to fight. I don't really know how it got here, but I'm sure as hell going to make it regret stepping into my world.' Yes, he will show it just how terrifying he can really be when he is inside Unlimited Blade Works.

...

„Looks like his body has started rejecting the blood." said Merlin as Emiya's movements have now increased and his eyes were rapidly moving beneath the eyelids.

„Merlin, if anything happens to him..."

„I know, I know. Speaking of happenings, the nobles seem to be making moves again."

„What are they doing this time?" asked Saber with her eyes narrowing

„Now that the King is out of the way for awhile, they are planning to use this as an opportunity to regain their former power. If the situation gets worse, we might be facing another rebellion."

"Damn those conspiring rats, daring to push their own agendas at a time like this. We cannot afford to be divided when we are right at the doorstep of our enemies!" Saber's anger grew further

"Indeed which is why you should do something about it."

"Me? But I'm in no position to do that."

"It doesn't matter, even if they don't bow down to you, the army would gladly follow you instead of them as you are a close knight to the king and an accomplished warrior, besides you were prepared to be a king for a long time, even if you did not become one you can still make use of that knowledge."

"Very well, I shall see what I can do."

Saber went out of the room and made her way towards the conference chamber.

She turned around a corner and bumped into someone.

"Ouch"

"Whoa"

Both of them fell and Saber felt hands on her chest. "Hmm." as the purple haired demoness felt a familiar sensation she straddled herself on top of Saber to investigate further.

"W-What are you doing, get off me this instant!"

But Minasaki didn't even bother to hear this as she continued to grope her chest. "Fumu, Fumu" she massaged her breasts with her petite hands, earning some struggling from Saber.

"Stop moving your hands and let me stand up already!" but the girl paid her no heed at all

She moved her fingers to the center of her breasts and started pinching and pulling her nipples.

"Ahhn—St-Stop this or you will regret it." she released her killing intent to frighten the girl

"Oh my how scary, but you know it isn't much use when you are letting out such cute and girly screams out…when I do this." she pulled back her nipples more which produced another squeal from Saber, causing her to momentarily drop her aura.

"That is really not a sound that a man or a knight should make, or could it be that you are not a man?" she asked with a sadistic smile on her face

"W-What are you implying, of course I'm a man!" she weakly defended her identity.

"Hoh, I wonder about that. There is only one way to make sure." A predatory look came over Minasaki's face as she started sliding one of her hands down to Saber's pants.

Saber quickly started panicking at this, if her gender was found out it would probably end her carrier as knight so she let out a "Noo!" and attempted to break free from her grasp. But out that Minasaki wasn't going to let her as her shadow wings firmly restrained her hands from action.

"Don't struggle, the examination will be over soon~!"

Her hands finally reached into the contents of her pants and Minasaki's smile only grew wider as she did this.

_Clatter_

Before Minasaki could proceed any further a servant-girl disturbed them as she dropped the tray she was carrying from the surprise. She took in the sight of what looked like Minasaki trying to take off the pants of Saber, her thoughts went wild and her face reddened.

"E-Excuse me." she quickly ran away as to not disturb them.

Saber used this opportunity to deliver a kick to Minasaki and free herself.

The demon girl attempted to escape by fading into one of the nearby shadows, but Saber managed to catch her before it.

She increased her hold on the girls arm so as not to let her go. "Ouch ouch, stop it you are hurting me!"

Saber didn't let go and instead narrowed her features. "If you dare to harass me again, I will kill you!" She meant it, while Saber was usually calm and reserved; she was not someone to tolerate something like harassment. "Also, don't tell anyone about this."

"Of course I wouldn't tell anybody, watching you trying to hide your gender would be far more amusing than revealing it after all."

She tightened her grip and said "Are we clear!?"

"Hai hai, we are clear, now let go of me you are going to bruise it."

She let go of her hand and continued towards the conference hall, but slowed her pace when she noticed that Minasaki was following behind her.

Saber made a questioning look that said 'Why the hell are you following me?' to her

"As an apology let me help you with the nobles, they are afraid of me after all." was her reply as a dangerous glint appeared briefly in her eyes.

"No, you will stay here; I do not want you to cause me any more trouble."

"Boo, you are no fun." the disappointed demon girl disappeared into the shadows.

'As if you could get rid of me just like that.'

As Saber approached the conference hall she began to hear the arguing voices of the nobles

"….that is exactly why we should make our move now. Now that the sword that symbolized and legitimized his kingship is broken, we can rally the crowds beneath us, and with him sleeping he wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it."

"You are a fool Aralis if you mean to divide this country right when we are at war. In peace times I might even support you or do something about the king myself, but doing it at the current moment is the height of idiocy. Need I remind you that we are still currently at war with Wessex? Even if you were to success in this little revolution of yours, the pagan forces would devour your armies that are weakened from the infighting."

"Lagran is correct; infighting would only serve to weaken us, besides do you really think that you could get the people's support behind you when they now hail the King as a dragonslayer and a hero? They couldn't care less if his sword is broken or not now that he has done a deed like this."

Aralis was forced to shut up when faced with the sound logic. But he wasn't going to abandon his plans. 'I will remove that foreigner, with or without their help.'

"Now that's out of the way, we should discuss how we are going to handle affairs in the king's absence and who is going to lead the armies. It would be foolish to not push now, right when the majority of their forces have been demolished."

_Bang_

At that moment Saber barged into the room and made everyone silent. All of the nobles had varying looks of either annoyed or surprised, none of them knew what she wanted here.

"I'm going to take control of the armies and continue our assault into the territories of Wessex; I shall also handle whatever negotiations may arise."

The raging of the nobles erupted after this sentence. "Outrageous, why should we, the nobles bow down to the will of a single soldier!?" asked one offended noble. Saber's annoyance grew, as she was a knight and that put her in the circles of the nobility, the problem is that she, Bedivere and Kay haven't been officially knighted yet during a ceremony so none of them is recognized as one.

"Because he is the only one that wouldn't stab the king in the back, as he is a close friend and a servant to him, he would be sure to carry out his will until he recovers." Minasaki emerged and already moved her shadow wings into a threatening position. "And if anyone objects to this…." she licked her fingers as she said the next sentence "…They shall meet the same end as the last men who tried to rebel against him."

The nobles were forced into a silence and scornful obedience at these words as none of them wanted to die. But Saber knew that being this forceful with the nobles would only earn even more resentment from them. She cursed at the girl in her mind as her actions might have just planted the seeds for several more future rebellions.

…..

After Saber was elected as the acting regent until King Emiya wakes up, she mobilized all the available forces to drive out the remaining pagans from Dummonia. Surprisingly they met little resistance as unknown to them Medea has completely abandoned the pagans in the area and fled back to Wessex.

This task was also made easier when the settlements and cities that were captured and oppressed by the pagans liberated themselves and joined Cornwall's armies, gladly hailing under the dragon slaying king's banner.

Several days passed like this and the whole of Dummonia was liberated from the pagan menace, order was finally restored. Emiya still had not woken up during this time and Saber was getting worried, but she decided to push the armies forward without her king and attack Wessex.

They reached the borders of Dummonia but the army was halted as several lightning bolts hit the ground in front of them. Confused as to what was happening the army quickly got into battle formation, but no army came for them and instead the galloping of a horse could be heard. It was a single horseman and looked obviously like a messenger; he didn't look like a pagan so the soldiers let him advance to Saber.

The messenger got off from his horse and announced himself as he approached Saber. "Greetings representative of Cornwall, I' am Caeth and I'm here to represent the interests of the Holy Magic Sect and all the kingdoms under its banner."

"Holy Magic Sect? I have never heard of a country such a country."

"Well it isn't really a country per say, It is an extremely powerful faction of mages that emerged a few months ago and made several territories and countries bow down before their might. Those countries are now vassals to this faction but have been allowed to keep their sovereignty and ruling body as long as they comply with the Sects orders."

Saber was surprised to hear of such a faction but kept her cool and focused on what was important at the moment. "And why does _this _Holy Magic Sect block my way into Wessex?"

"Because the Holy Magic Sect now owns these territories, therefore I ask you to withdraw your forces from these lands."

"What? But this land was supposed to be under the control of the pagans of Wessex."

"That was true until a week ago, we quickly made use of the opportunity that the majority of their forces were away and conquered most of their territories. Though there still remains a single territory that refuses to be defeated."

Saber was angry because it sounded like they exploited the fact that they were warring to get some easy territories. Never the less if they really own the territories now, they can't just barge into it or they will risk a war with a country of unknown power and strength. Still there remains the issue of Medea.

"Have you managed to capture the Witch of Wessex? If she is not caught she might just raise another rebellion from scratch."

"It is currently our top priority to locate and capture her. Our best men are currently working on her capture and they haven't lost her trail yet, rest assured she will be captured in a day or two."

"Please let us assist in the search; she must be captured at all costs!"

"I'm afraid that cannot be done, we are under strict orders to not let anyone cross these borders, even if the King of Cornwall was here, he wouldn't be given a pass either. So please turn your armies back and we will handle the pagans. Once we have captured the witch we shall send a messenger to you."

Saber frowned and withdrew her armies; she couldn't do much else in this kind of situation as barging into their territories would only damage their relations. She would rather wait for Shirou to awaken and decide on this issue instead.

…

When Saber returned to their temporarily headquarters in Dummonia, she was greeted with a weary looking Sir Ector, who looked like he was waiting for her. It looked like it was something serious so she hurriedly sent away the others and went to talk with him.

"Its good to see you well father, is there something wrong?"

"Yes Arthur, while you were gone one of the nobles used his men to loot the armoury and then proclaim to the city that he is going to rebel against the King, he managed to gather a few hundred people to his cause during the days you were away."

"What!? Who was it and why didn't anyone stop him?"

"It was…It was Aralis…." Saber cursed inside her own mind, she knew that damned Alaris wanted to rebel and it was clear to all of the nobles as well, but she didn't do anything because she thought that at least he would have had the sense to not do anything while they are still at war. She now regretted not taking Minasaki's offer to eliminate him, even if it were a dishonourable method a lot of people wouldn't have been involved if he was killed. 'I wonder what Shirou would have done.'

"….and we tried to stop him, but couldn't do anything against the assistance he got." Ector said in a sad tone

"Assisstance? Don't tell me that another country is assisting this coup!" if that were the case things would be really bad for them, much worse than it was in the first rebellion.

"No it isn't like that; Aralis has spent his entire fortune to hire a mercenary to aid him in his rebellion."

"Just one mercenary?" Saber began to question how one mercenary would be enough for that, but then took in the second part of his sentence, if Aralis really did spend that much money on him could only mean one thing. "Was he perhaps a mage? That would explain how he was able to get away with this." Merlin mentioned it to her several times that many mages would offer their services up for the highest bidder, plus living in a castle wasn't bad either.

"Actually it's not a mage, but a female warrior, but she is stronger than 30 men, I heard that Aralis hired her from Edessa."

Edessa… another strange new power like the Holy Magic Sect, where in Britain are these countries coming from? Well at least she has heard of Edessa thanks to Bedivere.

"So the Edessian mercenaries are as strong as the rumors say?" she wondered

"Yes, none of our men could match it until Kay came to help against her, but even he was defeated despite having the upper hand at first…"

"Kay was defeated, how? Was she stronger than him?"

"No, Kay was stronger than her both in strength and skill."

"Then how did he lose to her?"

"She used some strange sword technique….even though I have fought many battles in my life, I have never seen anything like it, I can't really compare it to anything, but it was like…like she was dancing with the blade. Kay most likely hasn't seen anything like it either and was caught off guard by her fighting style."

'That mercenary is definitely bad news, sounds like this rebellion will be worse than I initially thought, I will have to deal with it before Shirou wakes up.'

….

Meanwhile in the Scarlet Devil Mansion Remilia was very bored, nothing interesting was happening in Transylvania and the rebellions have stopped entirely. She would have gone and just conquered some other territories, but her player forbid her, telling her to wait for now. She didn't like to be ordered around, but she figured out that there was probably a reason she should stay put for now, considering that being a player allowed one to have complete observation of the game board, who knows what she has seen.

A zapping sound was heard as Sakuya appeared next to her; she silently waited for approval so she could say whatever she wanted to say.

Remilia nodded, giving permission.

"Ojou-sama, General Bartley is seeking an audience with you, should I let him in?"

"Bartley? He might have some interesting news, very well let him in!" Remilia ordered

"As you wish." and Sakuya disappeared

The gates have opened and in walked the man in question, during the last few weeks his appearance has drastically changed, he got rid of his beard and switched to a shorter hairstyle, and he also started to wear darker outfits combined with similar capes. Remilia's eyes twitched at the sight, she still wasn't sure if he was trying to impress her or fit in with the vampire setting, either way it didn't work.

Bartley moved closer and knelt before Remilia.

"So why have you come here Bartley, I trust you to not waste my time."

"Of course not your highness, I have come to report news that another country is marching its armies towards our territories."

"Is this why you have come here? I already told you to deal with any attackers."

Bartley gave off a smile at this "But this isn't just any country your highness, it is the Kingdom of Babylon, surely your majesty wouldn't miss the chance to face off against the Babylonian King."

"Hoh, that does sound entertaining." 'And that witch never said that I can't respond to attacks and defend myself.' she thought.

"Very well Bartley, we shall go and see how powerful these Babylonian forces truly are."

…

The rebellion was now official and fighting's have begun in the territories of Dummonia, however it was clear to everyone who was watching this unfold that it was a lot milder and weaker than the first rebellion that was launched against King Emiya.

This had to do with mainly one thing, around a few hundred man rallied to Alaris cause, but these men were not soldiers, they were nothing but simple villagers and citizens who were blinded by Alaris's propaganda and foolishly joined him. Even to Saber's surprise almost no soldiers deserted to him except those that he had already under his command, the reason for this is because most of the soldiers who witnessed King Emiya slay the dragon in that battle are no either in awe or fear of him. In a sense Alaris's _army _way nothing more than a glorified mob, who were stupid enough to take a fight with a man who could slay dragons and his equally powerful subordinates.

Because of this Alaris was forced to buy even more mercenaries, though these were ordinary ones no from powerhouses like Edessa. Even with their forces still only numbered around 1500 men and they couldn't do any large scale operations now that Saber and her army were ready, so they were forced to use guerrilla tactics. They attacked mostly during nights, raiding smaller villages and merchants, they have yet to try to move onto larger targets and the moment they will do it will be the moment their rebellion dies, both commanders knew this.

Which is why the two of them were now in a waiting game of sorts, Saber didn't know the location of Aralis or his army so she had to wait for some indication or clue to their location, meanwhile Alaris waited for some chance and bided his time until he saw the right moment to strike.

_Tap Tap Tap_

The footsteps of an attendant were heard as he approached Saber.

"Acting-Regent, a knight that once served King Mark is requesting an audience with you."

'A Knight of King Mark? How strange I thought that all of them either joined our army during the liberation or left the country.' this piqued the interest of Arthuria so she decided to see this knight.

"Let him in!"

She noticed that the attendant didn't make any move to obey her order and was fidgeting nervously.

"What's wrong?" she asked

"If I may say this I do not believe that it is wise to let that man into here, he seems dangerous."

"Nonsense, I have no reason to fear a fellow knight especially one that was a servant of King Mark, let him in!" The reason for this was because King Mark was a peaceful catholic king who always had a good relationship with the people of Cornwall, so she didn't think that any of his knights would harbour ill will towards them.

_Clang Clang Clang_

Heavy metallic footstep signalled the approach of something ominous.

_Creak_

The door was opened and a man stepped through it, a man that Saber at first thought it was a giant because he was so tall, she estimated that he was at least above 2 meters in height. But even this detail was irrelevant when compared to the other notable thing that lingered all around the man.

The air had completely died after the man stepped into the room, and made all the nearby attendants panic stricken, there was just an aura of fear surrounding him, she managed to ignore this through her willpower and maintain a calm demeanour. But she still had to resist immediately standing up to cut down this man.

He was _wrong, wrong, wrong_, like some demon spawn that shouldn't exist, every part of her instincts was screaming at her to remove this potential threat. She didn't understand how a man was able to emit such an aura, but she already regretted allowing him inside.

Besides the overwhelming aura there was another thing that felt off about the man, it was bloodlust, he radiated so much of it that Saber wondered how the knight was standing so calmly in front of her, although she couldn't see his facial features as his whole body was obscured by his steel grey armour.

_Clan Clang_

The knight stepped forward and Saber almost drew out her weapon in response, but to her surprise the knight slammed his large shield down and knelt in front of her along with it.

"Your highness, my name is Sir Glais, I was a knight under King Mark, I have come here to offer a mutually beneficial agreement to the both of us." said a much calmer and colder voice than Saber expected him to sound like

She wondered what kind of an agreement he was talking about "Very well feel free to speak then."

"I'm afraid this is not something we would want to discuss when there are others watching."

'So he wants us to be alone, that can only mean 2 things, either he really has something sensitive to talk about or wants to kill me and doesn't want witnesses, either way removing the attendants is better since at least they wouldn't fall to his blade in case of a fight, and I'm positive that I can defeat him if it comes to that.'

She simply waved her hand signalling for the guards and attendants to leave.

_Slam_

The door was closed and only the two of them were in the room now.

"Excuse me for frightening you and your men, I can't exactly turn this aura of mine off."

"You can't turn it off; you mean that it's a curse, right?" her eyes narrowed if that was the case she now felt a little guilty for reacting to it, but there still was this nabbing thought at the back of her mind that said 'Don't trust this man.'

"Not exactly, but I guess you can say that, let's discuss our topic at hand instead, I didn't come here to discuss my condition after all."

The knight moved somewhat closer with a relaxed stance.

"I'm aware of the problems you are having with finding Aralis and his little rebellion, well let me tell you now that I have successfully located their hiding spot, and I'm even willing to take them out for you in exchange for a simple reward."

'How in the blazes did he get hold of such information, when we couldn't find anything after searching for days?' of course she shouldn't let her hopes up, after all for all she knew the information might be fake or some kind of ruse, instead she should see what this man wants in return.

"Cut to the chase, what do you want, Glais?"

This question made the knight smile behind his helmet.

"What I want is simple, with now King Mark gone, I' am looking for a new lord to serve obviously and I was thinking if King Emiya would accept me and my men into his army." He said with a bow that was slightly mocking

She thought that request made sense, since if he was really King Mark's knight, then he would want to serve Dummonia once more, and now that it was under Emiya's rule serving him was the best bet to do that, but there are still several suspicious things about him.

"Men? Are there perhaps others with you?"

"Yes I had my own battalion while I was under King Marks command; there are around 500 people under my direct command at the moment."

This made his situation even more dubious, where did him and his 500 were hiding so far and why didn't they appear when Dummonia was being liberated?

"Excuse but I thought that all the soldiers were sent to defend the borders from Wessex, most of those groups we have already recovered or confirmed killed. So may I ask where you and your group were staying during this?" Asked Saber after some seconds of silence

"Oh I see where your confusion comes from now… This group was not a regular group within King Mark's army and we operated outside of the normal rules, we were known as the Black Cavalry." Glais started to walk and look around the room while talking, needless to say this was a rude behavior

"The Black Cavalry?" asked Saber, trying to keep the conversation straight and ignore the rudeness

"Yes, the unique trait among our members is that almost all of them are criminals that were sentenced to death, but instead were given the choice to serve the country as a soldier, it is an all around cavalry unit focused on pillaging and wreaking chaos in the enemy's lands." The Grey Knight explained somewhat cheerfully while he was looking at the various decorations in the room

"Pillaging and criminals? Don't joke around; King Mark would never use such underhanded methods!"

"King Mark may not, but this group was not formed by him in the first place, he merely inherited it."

"What do you mean?"

"King Mark had many enemies and was almost constantly at war with its neighbouring countries with the exception of Cornwall, he conquered and absorbed several factions into his own country, the surrendered armies didn't have much choice aside from turning into a mercenary/bandit group or joining King Mark's army, so I decided to join him with my band. Our group itself was formed by a desperate man who was trying to get more soldiers by any means necessary to defeat him; of course he failed since he wasn't much of a strategist."

"Again if you joined King Mark I really must come back to my previous question, where were you during the invasion? You said that your group didn't operate by the normal rules, what mission were you on?"

"While the majority of the army was sent to defend the borders, we were instructed to head to Wessex with one goal in mind, that was to locate the Witch of Wessex and eliminate her by any means necessary, while there we were free to do anything in the area, as long as it didn't make our presence known, needless to say this objective was never accomplished, since as we later found out the Witch was in Dummonia with her army."

Glais stopped looking around and moved before Saber once more, who waited to ask her next question until he stopped moving.

"I understand your situation now, but how did you find out about the rebellions location?" she inquired with a suspecting tone

"Well, let's just say this _curse_ of mine has a _few benefits_ to it. So are my terms agreeable or not, I will wipe out the rebellion and in exchange you will accept me and my men."

"I'm afraid I must decline this offer, I cannot accept someone as shady as you into our ranks and accepting a bunch of criminals would only demoralize the rest of our troops…" 'And would worse the image of Shirou among the nobles even more.' she though "…Instead I offer another option, please tell us the location of the rebels and in exchange I will grant you whatever material wishes you could possibly have."

She could tell that this irritated the knight a bit as he waited a few seconds before replying.

"I'm afraid this is a non-negotiable offer and besides I'm not interested in money anyway. "

"I see, then I'm afraid that our business is concluded here, we will find the rebels on our own."

"Are you sure that is a wise choice, your highness? After all I could always just go to Aralis and assist in his rebellion, surely another 500 armed horsemen would be bad news for you." a menacing predatory smile started to grow inside his helmet.

"Are you threatening me?" she asked with narrowing eyes

"Maybe, I did only say that it was a possibility after all, the choice is up to you in the end."

"You do realize that as the acting regent I could easily have you executed or thrown into the stockades for this."

"I'm sure you can do that, but then you would have to go through the trouble of capturing me, which I must remark wouldn't be as easy as you imagine..." He touched his purple-grey sword as he said this. "And besides even if you do manage to capture me somehow, I have already left instructions to my men to join Alaris in case I don't return."

'This is bad I can't allow them to gain anymore power than what they already have, and these men are not just peasants, but seasoned soldiers, criminals they might be, they would still make a considerable addition to their armies. '

She considered the other possibility and that was to accept them, they could always just wait them to complete their end of the bargain then deal with them when the time comes, even without that factor this choice was the more advantageous compared to the other one, so she made a decision.

"Very well, I shall accept your offer after all, but keep that in mind that this isn't up to me to decide, your recruitment shall lie with King Emiya himself once he wakes up, the only thing I promise to do is that I will set up a meeting with him for you. Is that acceptable?"

"Of course, this agreement satisfies me."

…..

Rustle Rustle

A lone figure walks in the forests of Wessex, trying to hide from her pursuers; she stops and casts a bounded field that would hide her, allowing her to have some rest. The figure was the Witch of Betrayal, Medea. After she got back to Wessex she was greeted with a situation she didn't expect, the areas and the land were completely ruined, as if some kind of earthquake went through everything. This made it harder for her to pinpoint locations since everything looked so different, she also figured out that this was the reason why she lost the connection with the ley line.

As ley lines are deeply intertwined with the land, the only real way to destroy them is to rearrange or ruin the areas surrounding it, making the lines rearrange their formation and shift somewhere else. She figured out that it was done deliberately to prevent her from using large scale spells, most likely they were wary of her teleportation. And they were right to fear it, if they didn't disable it, she would have easily conquered Cornwall.

'Damn, that demonic mage, I will make sure to kill him painfully when I move against Cornwall once more.' she cursed in hear head.

Except that would be hard to do at the moment, since the remainder of her pagan army that she left back in Wessex were destroyed, another unknown country decided to use the weakness caused by the earthquake to invade, it wasn't a bad idea and she would have done so as well if she were in a similar situation, but it still frustrated her that it had to happen now and more specifically to her.

It also became evident that whoever was invading her territory was actively looking for her for some reason. She tried to leave the area many times now, but couldn't due to the fact that the moment she leaves her bounded fields they find her within a moments notice. It seems that they are using some sort of mana detection spell to track her down, it shouldn't take them long to narrow down her current location and find her, she only had half an hour at best, but even that is plenty of time to make some sort of preparation against their attack.

Long range teleportation is also no longer an option since with the destruction of the ley-line her territory was destroyed as well.

Her dreams have also increasingly became more cryptic and frequent ever since the battles have ended, she knew that it was some omen, so it could mean that her fate should be pretty clear to read now.

So she started an ancient ritual of future telling known as scrying, she sat down in a meditating position and closed her eyes so she could focus, one must maintain complete concentration while doing this, and so if the enemy came now they would surely get her, as she wouldn't be able to notice them.

She closed of all outside sources through self hypnosis, absolute silence and loss of all sensitivity descended towards her. She was effectively cut off from the real world. All she had to do now was wait and concentrate for the results.

_Drip Drip_

The sound of water dripping was imagined by her mind, but this only helped her concentrate more.

_Drip Drip Drip_

The dripping intensified and now she could start to make out some blurry outlines, but nothing enough to make an accurate assessment.

_Splash Splash_

She imagined the great waves that would wash away everything and now the vision became clearer. The witch concentrated some more and now she was inside the vision. She was in the area she decided to rest in, only this time this was in her imagination. Medea decided to go out of her bounded field and try to find a way out.

The witch didn't know for how long she had walked nor did she care as time and length lost all meaning in this place, soon she encountered 2 other human figures, an armoured knight with a horned helmet and a twin tails blonde girl with a sword that seemed to emit light itself.

'An encounter huh, so these are the people who are chasing me, now to figure out what path to take to evade them.' With just a thought she was back at where she started, she proceeded to walk again, this time in a different location.

She walked and walked, but encountered the two figures once more.

'Tch, maybe if I hide my presence with prana?'

The Princess of Colchis returned to her starting location once more and covered herself in pure prana, almost erasing her presence entirely, and headed for a different location this time.

...However just as before she eventually met up with the pair once more, even if it took more time than the last try. She tried it again with several dozen methods only to be met with the same result; she couldn't avoid them no matter what direction she went in or what action she decided to take.

'Why can't I evade them no matter what I do? Looks like ground travel is useless, well whatever looks like I will just have to fly.'

Her robes formed into a wing and she started to ascend into the sky, she didn't manage to get far….

"**Flight will not be permitted."** rang out the voice of a young girl

…..as a sentence etched in red pierced and sent her plummeting down to earth. Even though this is only in her mind and she shouldn't be feeling any pain, a burning hot sensation came to her stomach as the red stake of words was burning her.

_Chatter Chatter_

Weird clattering sounds were heard and the smell of sweets filled the area as all kinds of candy appeared out of nowhere, they started gathering and formed into….

….what was a little girl dressed in a pin Halloween styled outfit.

Despite the childish appearance, Medea held no illusions about the girl; she knew that whoever it was extremely powerful, as not anybody can just enter into her mind like that. It didn't help that she was also exuding a similar if not even more potent sense of power like that woman who sent her here.

"You….You are a player aren't you?" she grunted out while trying to pull out the stake from herself

"Hoh you are quite perceptive, that must mean I'm not the first one you have met. Tell me who was it. Was it the Old Man or…. perhaps the Gap Hag?" she seen a reaction when she mentioned the word 'gap' so she knew that she hit the mark. "So you were summoned by Yukarin then, interesting so you are one of the few she had hand-picked personally." she said with an amused expression on her face.

The blonde haired girl noticed that Medea was still struggling with the stake and dispersed it with a flick of her wrist to ease her.

"Are you the one that has tinkered with my fate and doesn't allow me to escape?" The Witch of Betrayal accused her. After her many trials and errors she had realized that her fate had been altered so she would not be able to escape the encounter with her chasers, this was also the reason why she was having so many ominous dreams.

"Hoh, my opinion of you increases by the second, yes indeed it was I who has manipulated your fate to suit my own needs, as for the reason why I did this is because I do not want to let go of such an useful pawn as you."

"I don't remember being the pawn of an annoying brat like you." Medea bit back, she wasn't going to be ordered and manipulated by someone who looks like a kid.

"A brat?..." her face took a malicious shape and she released some of her power along with her killing intent, it was much bigger than what Medea previously sensed from her, it seemed that she was only showing a fraction of her true power. "….Call me that again and I will show you just how lukewarm your sad little lifestory is when I put you into the worst possible fragment."

_**Tug**_

Visions entered Medea's mind, horrific visions that showed her life, or rather how much worse her life could have been that it originally was, the visions tormented her spirit and forced her to her knees, soon they ceded but in place came another group of visions.

_**Tug**_

These ones were of other possibilities that could have happened in the fifth Holy Grail War, they told her off all the horrible possibilities that could have befallen her and Kuzuki, she started clutching her head after this.

"Make it stop!" she demanded

"I guess I should, you are of little use to me after all if I break your mind." with that she stopped sending the visions and her face returned to normal. "Anyway listen here now since you do not have a choice in this matter, you either follow my orders or you will be captured by your enemies and lose any chance you had at completing the game."

"Fine…what do you want?"

"What I want is simple, I want the piece of Yukarin eliminated and throw her out of the game, the piece is in Dummonia and you are in a suitable position to destroy him"

"I'm afraid I don't know this piece you are talking about, would you care to elaborate?"

"Oh but you _do_ know him very well, as you were battling his army a few days ago and is the reason for you current pitiful state."

'She means that….that hateful Archer is a piece?' Now she understood why he had so many strong subordinates under him, his player must have put him into a favourable starting position. And for all she knows, this 'Yukarin' could have easily manipulated the battle to make Archer come out as a winner.

"Yes, that piece is the man you know as Archer." replied the blonde witch upon seeing Medea's face

"Well I would be all for destroying Archer, but as you probably know I lost my army and doing it alone would be suicide, so what do you expect me to do?"

"That is not really a problem as I have the means to immediately give you another faction, far stronger than your original one."

"Hoh, what would I need to do to get my hands on this faction?" she became more interested as she really needed more power to get back into the game.

"Meet up with the pair that is trying to capture you and agree to go with them willingly, the faction they work for is a magiocratic society where the mages rule the commoners, they would gladly accept you into their faction and they have been looking for more manpower anyway. But do not let yourself be forcefully capture, if that happens they will turn you into a doll that cannot do anything else but obey their commands."

"So what's the next step of your grand plan? Surely I cannot just go there and ask them to hand command over."

"Oh don't worry…"

A red text of undeniable truth came into existence that read as follows "_**I, the Witch of Absolute Certainty, the great and cute Lambdadelta guarantee that you will be able to take over them within a matter of hours once you are inside.**_"

Medea was left unable to argue back as the truth sank in, the red truth can only be used to speak the truth only, it was an undeniable fact.

However there was still one thing that Medea didn't like and slowly dawned upon her. A hateful nostalgic feeling came over her as she realized that this situation was a little different than when Aphrodite manipulated her, she and this Lambdadelta are probably hardly different, both are insanely powerful and just want to use her for their own gains, she similarly had no say in the matter. She unconsciously clenched her first which Lambda noticed.

"Aah, you just thought something bad about me, didn't you? Don't view me as evil, when I haven't even told you the best part yet! I have decided that if you manage to kill Archer for me, then I will grant you the happy end that you are seeking."

A renewed hope filled Medea that didn't bother to doubt the Witch's claims, since it was exactly what she wanted to hear. For Souichirou-sama she would gladly do anything, even participate in a Witch's schemes.

"…Besides it's not like you would have stood a chance against _my_ Scarlet Devil anyway. Doing what I say is the best and only way for you to get your wish."

…

Medea slowly opened her eyes and returned from the depths of her mind, in reality only a few minutes have passed even though entire hours had passed inside her head. She stood up and exited her bounded field, they would find her soon.

She decided to comply with Lambda's plan and follow her so she could escape this wicked game.

_Tap Tap_

She moved out of the woods and exited to a clearing, she decided to wait and prepare for her pursuers here.

Several purple magic circles were made beneath the grass as a precaution; it never hurts to be careful after all.

Everything was quiet and not a single sign of life was seen, but Medea knew that this was just the calm before the storm. An enemy was coming, an enemy that cannot be seen with normal eyes, fortunately for her she has prepared for this situation and cast a spell on herself that allowed her to detect life itself in the area.

Tug

She detected the enemy approaching; she knew of her capabilities, Lambda had been sure to inform her so she wouldn't make a mistake. The enemy that was coming was Rebecca Silky, who would be her pawn against Emiya once she is done with this. She possessed the ability to manipulate light, this allowed her to turn invisible, change the perspectives of the enemy or make someone effectively blind, it was also a troublesome ability because it would allow her to redirect or block her laser beams.

She turned on her feet and began to walk in the opposite direction, this way it would seem like she is completely unaware of the coming attack.

But in truth it was the poor knight of the Silky house that was unaware of the impending trap she was heading into….

…..

Night has fallen for the hidden camp of Alaris and his rag-tag band of followers.

2 young men were keeping looking for any returning comrades or incoming enemies.

"Hey, how long do you think we will be staying here?" called out one of the men to the other.

"I don't know, but I really wish that we would just get out of this god forsaken place." Replied the other man

"What are we even doing here?"

"I would guess that our 'great leader' didn't manage to get as much support as he hoped to, so now he is forced to wait and hide like a coward."

"Waiting for what exactly?"

"I don't know, anything that could turn the situation into his favour, reinforcements, support from other nobles, random opportunities you name it."

"Hearing this I'm starting to understand the recent desertions, especially when we are behaving like common bandits."

"Yeah since that idiot probably expected for the rebellion to be quick he didn't plan for any long term situations, so we quickly used up our food supplies and that is why we have to constantly raid villages and caravans to feed our soldiers. This of course really doesn't sit well with lot of us, so I would wager that by the end of this week nobody will remain here, but Alaris and his mercenaries, well of course assuming that he can still pay them."

"We joined the rebellion to overthrow King Emiya damnmit, not to slaughter innocent people and raid our villages!"

"I don't know about that, personally I couldn't care less if the King was foreigner or not, all that should matter is how he treats his people, and from what I seen so far he hasn't done anything that should earn him the anger of the people, in fact he even managed to defend our country be repelling back the pagan horde."

"Then…Then what the hell are you even doing here?" He asked shocked at his words, since he couldn't imagine why anyone would join a cause that he didn't support or believe in.

"Because my idiot of a brother actually believed the lies that Alaris was spouting, and since he is an idiot who can't do anything by himself, I came along to protect him and make sure he doesn't die."

"Brotherly bonds eh, must be nice."

"You would be surprised how many there are in this group who are in similar situation as me. Well I'm just hoping to finally be able to persuade my idiot brother and get out of here once and for all."

"_Clop Clop Clop_." The sound of horse hooves banging against the earth disturbs the night and by extension the conversation of the two men.

"Hey….I don't think that anyone has left with horses recently…." said one of them uncertainly

"…Yeah….that must mean…." started to reply the other one

"An enemy attack, right now!?" finished both of them

The moving darkness was getting closer

"Damn, what do we do?"

"You sound the alarm, I try to hold them back!" he readied his sword, even though he knew that he won't stand a minute against horsemen.

"I understand…thank you." said the man as he began to run away….

….only to have his feet frozen in place

"What's wrong, why aren't you moving, damnit!?" he was about to go and shake his companion but found out he couldn't move either

A sudden dread started looming over them

A dread so terrifying that it made them literally freeze in place, like a deer caught in the headlights

"_Clop Clop Clop_." the sound became more violent and stronger, which made them look into the direction of the approaching enemy.

"W-What the hell is that!?" asked one of the confused man

"We…are doomed…." he dropped his sword in total despair, knowing that death itself have come to claim them.

"_Clop Clop Clop_"

Yes, a death that rode on a steed as black as night, a death that was surrounded by a veil of darkness that caused fear and panic to anyone it came into contact with. A death whose shining red eyes could be seen beneath his grey helmet.

"_**H**__ah__**A**__ha__**HA**__hA_" the darkness clad reaper didn't care who dared to stand in his way, he drew out his terrifying sword…..

_Slash_

….And departed the head of one of the men from his body

He charged right into the camp and a several more horsemen followed him, carrying torches, as they raided across the area; they trampled the life out of the other one.

The Reaper moved forward to continue its massacre in the camp; no one was expecting him so he was able to slaughter as he pleased.

_Slash, Thrust Slash_

Dozens and dozens of men fell under his cursed blade in several seconds. Some of them were realizing the situation now and were trying to actively counter attack, however it was all useless. He merely released the full extent of his aura and paralysed the poor men.

"Hiiii—"started to shriek a man before his scream was cut off

"Aaagh!" cried out another as his blade went through him

He made his exit on the other side of the camp; a hundred must have fell to him.

Behind him followed a wake of similarly powerful horsemen; however these were no longer exhibiting a surreal pressure of death. They didn't attempt to kill anyone, instead they were solely focused on setting everything on flame with their torches, soon they passed as well and the members of the rebellion were left to burn in flames. But Glais knew that this was not the end yet.

…

Few days have passed since then and Glais and his cavalry kept the pressure up on the rebels, not letting them rest at all. They avoided open confrontation though, since that wasn't how they operated and they didn't want to needlessly lose their numbers.

Their attacks have lowered the rebel's morale and just as the young men predicted, Alaris was left with nothing but his mercenaries and die-hard loyalists, though even some of the mercenaries were already deserting, since no payment was worth dying for.

The black cavalry relentlessly kept chasing him now that his now numbers were low enough, they chased until Alaris was forced to fall back into one of his castles, and prepare for the incoming assault, but the fool didn't know that this was exactly what Glais wanted him to do.

"Are you sure you will be all right alone, boss?" asked one of the members of the cavalry to Glais who was preparing to storm the castle by himself.

"Yeah, its best if I do it alone, just stay out of my way and wait until I break through, you can have everything that remains after that."

"Hey get back ya lot! The boss is going to go wild again." said the man as he was returning to the rest of the group.

….

The castle defenders looked confused at how a single horseman was approaching their castle like an idiot with a death wish.

"What is he doing, is he stupid?"

"Yeah, like he can just take the castle like that, ha! Give me the bow, I will shoot him down!"

He was handed the weapon by one of his companions and started to aim at the incoming Glais.

_Swoosh_

The arrow flew towards the grey knight; however he simply caught it with his free hand.

"No way! Shoot another one!"

He was about to shoot another one but one of his comrades stayed his hand

"Stop it you idiot, you aren't going to pierce that armour with mere arrows, stop wasting our munitions, it's not like he can break these walls all by himself."

"Bring out the oil; we will just fry him if he gets close enough."

"Foolish humans, it's already over for you…no **M**_aTt__**E**_R w_**H**_a_**T y**_O_**u**_ _**Do**_."

His horse let out a cry as it's skin started to melt away from it's body, it's head was nothing more than a bare skull now with glowing yellow eyes and it's body seemed to start merging with the knight that it was carrying.

"Guys, what in god's name is that thing?"

_Clop Clop Clop_

The sound of doom approaches

"No! Stay away!"

Something large smashed into the castle walls, immediately ending the lives of many that was guarding it.

…..

_Bang_

The castle itself started to shake as something massive annihilated its walls.

Alaris who was hiding in the inner rooms of the castle was now holding his head in panic.

"What the hell is happening out there? I thought our defences were solid, don't tell me that they actually managed to break it!?"

"You need to face reality and accept what is happening now, your castle has been breached and your men are dying, will you flee or fight?" asked out a much softer and feminine voice who was casually leaning against the wall, holding her weapon to herself. She wore strange clothing for this timeline, but it would have stood out even in modern times, it was an extremely colourful and decorated white-red schoolgirl uniform, over it she wore a long and white biker coat.

"We…..We have no where to run!" he turned his mad eyes to the girl mercenary "You will take care of them; this is what I paid you for, after all."

The girl got up and gave a smile that said 'finally some action'.

"Hai, I shall take care of everything." with this she marched out of the room.

She walked outside and witnessed the carnage that was before her, it instantly became clear that this was a lost situation.

The black cavalry had charged in with their full might now that the walls were broken and proceeded to slaughter anyone that remained after Glais charge, only a handful men were left.

What she assumed to be the leader of the group slowly walked towards her, his body was knitting itself back together, skin started appearing back on his bare flesh and soon his cursed armour was also attaching itself back, piece by piece.

Despite the gruesome sight, the girl didn't look one bit fazed, what bothered her was however the foul stench that seemed to be coming from the knight.

"So you are the mercenary girl I heard about, eh." Glais said, now his form was completely back to his original state

"You should leave, as you can see this rebellion is already over, you won't gain anymore profit for dying needlessly."

Glais made his way into the castle, but the girl stepped before him.

"I'm afraid I cannot do that."

"Hoh, lot of loyalty for a mercenary, but this is closer to stupidity than loyalty. The first thing you should learn as a warrior girl is to be able to judge your enemy's strength."

"You cannot beat me, girl." he said as if he was stating a fact.

"Don't you think that it's equally foolish to decide a match before it's even started?"

"My words are not of those of arrogance or foolishness; I can _tell_ exactly how strong you are and how much combat your body went through, my senses are not the same as of a human's."

"If that is so then I will just have to surpass you during battle! So let's dance, I've been longing for a while to test myself against this land's strongest."

"Very well, then I shall enjoy breaking you." Glais drew out his grey-purple sword and stepped forward

The girl did the same and entered a stance where she was holding her overly large katana, however she didn't draw it out. Glais wondered how she would use a weapon that is as big as her; it was always exciting to fight against new kinds of warriors.

The girl charged forward, the blade was still in it's sheath, she move closer towards Glais, who already launched the first strike towards her, however she nimbly side stepped out of the way. Now it was her time to strike.

_Swoosh_

With a flick of her hand the katana was launched from it's sheath guided like a missile, it cut into Glais's head armour, but wasn't able to penetrate it completely due to it's thickness and strength.

"Tch!" the girl frowned, but continued with her follow up.

She kept her blade moving while her feet moved beyond human capability, she traced her katana against Glais side and ended up at his back where she did another powerful step combined with a slash that dug into the knight's shoulders and now she was back at her original position. All of this has happened under a single second.

_Click_

The katana returned to its sheath and awaited the time it would be drawn once more.

The girl frown deepened as she noticed that his armour was mending itself, making all the damage she inflicted redundant.

"Is that it all?" asked Glais while smiling beneath his helmet

"Not at all, now begins the real show time." while the girl maintained the cheerful demeanour, she knew that to pierce that armour she would need to use some stronger methods.

Dash

She began her assault against the cursed knight for the second time. The grey-purple blade came to take her hands, but it didn't matter to her.

Swoosh

The katana was fired from it's sheath for the second time, it came into contact with the larger blade and directed it aside, it continued it's path and impacted against the Knight's chestplate, she felt it dug in a bit, but she knew that it wasn't going to be enough. She proceeded to draw the blade back from its current position; it cut against his hand-guard while it did so, creating sparks in the process.

'I see, I need to go even stronger than this, the people of this time are truly strong.'

"If dancing around is all you can do, then I shall finish this right now." Glais said as he let some of his power escape, a black mist of fear started to surround him, this normally would be enough to paralyze a normal human, but it didn't seem to have any effect on the mercenary girl.

He dashed forward and prepared to slash his sword against the girl, however the girl simply jumped backwards and as she was doing so she entered into her stance once more, and launched a long strike towards his helmet. Glais barely managed to avoid it, he had to since it was coming for his eyes this time.

'Cunning Bitch.' he though

Before Glais could even recover from his dodge, the swordswoman launched herself at him with such force that it created a shockwave.

"Foolish girl, I have got used to your patterns already!" he brandished his sword against the black haired mercenary

_Flutter_

Glais view was suddenly obscured by something white

"What?"

His sword went through the white fabric, but there was no one behind it, it was only just clear to him that the girl had thrown off her coat.

He let the power overtake him so he would be able to locate the girl…

"_**Ichi!**_"

….but it was too late as a slash braced against his chest.

"_**NI!**_" Came the second strike in the same heart beat, creating a larger crack in the armour

"HAAA!" Glais roared as he tried to cut her down, but the girl twisted her entire body out of the way and while she did so, she was already moving her katana for the third strike.

"_**SAN!**__"_

_Crack_

A small hole emerged in Glais chest-plate, now she would only need to deliver the finishing blow.

_Swoosh_

She thrust her sword towards his chest, if the attack lands it would pierce him right in the heart.

_Grab_

"If you could have finished me in 3 strikes that would have been magnificent, but too bad for you since you couldn't bring the fourth one fast enough, I will now proceed to take your head." He spoke while he was holding the katana with his left hand. "If you want to blame something, blame your own weakness."

He was about to bring down a slash on her, but in her other hand there was another sword, this one was smaller than her main one but still dangerous.

"A second one!?"

He was forced to parry the blow, but in the process he let go of the larger katana.

_Stab_

It happened in an instant, the moment the katana was back in her hand she delivered the fatal strike.

"Guh!"

_Spurt_

Black blood as dark as the night started pouring out from his wound.

"Soshite Yon."

_Click_

She sheathed her blade back and started to walk back to the inner areas, she would need to defend the location against the remaining raiders.

_Tug Tug_

She sensed an incoming malicious intent so she turned behind to face her attacker, only to be vertically slashed by Glais's sword.

"Kah!" she fell backwards, she was still barely conscious despite the damage that she received.

"YOuR _TeCH_nI**QU**e uSEs the dRaWing m**OMeNT**um to **Ma**_**Xi**__mI_ZE tHe E**ffEcti**veNesS of the _**StrIK**_e." his voice was distorted and deeper than before, making it harder to understand

"Aaah, forgive me it appears that I have let the power go into my head again."

"Anyway, your style is magnificent your moves are beautiful and fast like the wind, however as I told you in the beginning…."

"….y_**ou**_ ca_NNo_t _**be**_at _**ME**_."

A sword sunk into the girl's chest

…..

Bang

The door was ripped apart as Glais kicked it open

"Hiii!" Alaris let out an unsightly cry and began to rummage around his room, looking for something.

_Step Step_

Meanwhile 2 remaining guards of him moved forward with nervous expressions on their faces.

"Come on; are you really that stupid to still defend him in this hopeless situation? I have already slaughtered hundreds of your comrades, what difference will you two make? If you go now I _might_ let you live."

After some hesitation the soldiers let go of their sword and they fell to the ground with a clang, they proceeded to leave the room….

_Slash_

….But a single slash separated their head from their necks.

"Hahaha, only fools let go of their weapons."

'Now where was I…' he turned to face Alaris, however a blue blast of magic went off against his armour.

"Some kind of artifact? It's useless; you would need a much stronger one to affect me with magic."

He walked closer and closer

"S-Stay away!"

The panicked man kept shooting him with more magic blasts, but they all bounce off from him.

His arm moved to cast another set of blasts….

_Snap_

…his wrists were broken by the grey knight.

"You god damned monster! If the King is really employing bastards like you who have no qualms about using dishonourable or underhanded methods, then I was right about everything, others will see it in time, just watch, his reign will fall apart over time!"

"Guh!" tried to groan out Alaris as he was lifted up by his throat.

"You speak of honour and right or wrong methods, but you seem to forget how many people died because of your stupidity not to mention that your actions have put the entire country under danger. Making the country infight with itself just for your own personal gain when an enemy threat is looming on it? You can call that despicable or even traitorous."

"Where is YOUR honour when you resorted to assaulting innocent people just so you can continue this futile war of yours?"

He looked like he wanted to say something, but he couldn't as Glais's hand was still firmly holding him by the throat.

"Well I do not care anyway, you don't need to justify yourself to me, I just wanted to point out your own hypocrisy."

"Anyway, I shall take your life now."

_Snap_

As his neck was broken the life soon left his eyes.

_BANG_

A loud sound came from the outside and some commotion could be heard.

….

Glais walked out to see what the situation was. A few dozen of his men were crowded around something, so he couldn't see what was happening yet.

As he approached, his man took note of him and let him pass through them.

"Move out of the way! Do you want to die?"

_BANG_

Another really loud sound was released that made the eardrums of nearby observers hurt.

Nevertheless it worked as the crowd distanced themselves from the girl; this allowed Glais to get a full view of the situation.

It was a female, however despite being one she had a muscular and well toned body, Glais could tell that she lived a life of constant battles and her body was honed to the human limit. She wore strange black and grey clothes that covered her body with the exception of her head and arms (which were fully tattooed with tribal like markings). Of course the knight of the past didn't know that it was a modern militarily grade outfit, her torso was protected by reinforced Kevlar and many shotgun shells decorated it. By modern definition she was literally armed to teeth, many ammo pouches lingered on her belt, she carried an AK-74 on her back, two pistols were ready to be drawn in her rear and a combat knife was also placed near her left shoulder. In her right hand was a massive shotgun which barrel was still steaming. With her left arm she was trying to keep the girl on her shoulders from falling.

Even despite this getup, her feminity still remained, she had pale grey-blonde hair which she wore in a ponytail, her face was devoid of any scars and was very beautiful despite her rough appearance, her blue eyes were still full of life.

'Reinforcements, Comarades?' Glais thought

He moved his eyes downwards and noticed what used to be his former comrade; his body looked like it was violently ripped apart by some beast. His eyes came back to the weapon she was carrying.

'Another magic artifact? Then it will have no effect on me.' he moved closer, prepared to engage her, however as he did so she turned the object in her hand towards him.

"You're the leader aren't ya? How about you tell your men to fuck off and let me pass!"

"You think you can threaten me? Besides why have you foolishly come into the middle of a battlefield?" his eyes darted towards the mercenary girl's corpse "What use do you have with that corpse that made it worth for you to enter here?"

"She is my friend, I plan to bury her. Why is it even YOUR business what I'm doing with a corpse."

'Something doesn't add up.' he thought

"If she really is your friend, then don't you want to get some revenge over her? After all the one who killed her is standing right before you."

Glais made sure to watch her face very carefully as he said these words, but there was hardly any reaction, the only one he got was a small momentarily blood lust. This is not how someone who just had her friend killed reacts to the killer.

"I would pass, I want to avoid unnecessary conflict if possible, though you sure seem like an annoying guy, I might just come back for your head later."

'Either her story is made up or something else is wrong….'

As he was thinking this the 'corpse' began fidgeting and raised her head "Suzumi…chan?" and asked with confused eyes.

"Shh, don't talk you idiot!"

"Now I understand the situation, looks like I should have cut off her head instead."

"Tch, looks like fighting my way out here is the only way now!"

_Click_

The pin was released and something small and silvery looking fell to the ground.

Everyone looked curiously as the tiny metal object rolled on the surface.

_Flash_

Then whiteness filled the world.

"Aaagh, my eyes!"

"What's happening?"

"I can't see!"

Cried many of the assembled soldiers.

'Blinding magic!? Tch, annoying but I don't need to rely on my human senses anyway.'

He honed in on her location using his heightened senses.

She managed to get atleast a few hundred meters away before he came chasing down on her.

'Not a bad distance for a regular human, let's see how she fares in combat though!'

Glais foolishly charged right at her location while he was blinded, he didn't notice until the last minute that he tipped something off with his feet, that thing was a claymore mine.

_Boom_

He was sent flying a few meters and his right leg was cleanly blown off.

"Kaah!" he tried to reach for his dropped sword.

_Bang_

But his hand was gone with a blast from Suzumi's shotgun.

"It was not magic!?"

"Of course, I don't need magic to kill a worm like you..."

Step Step

The pony-tailed girl walked closer

_Clang_

Something metallic and heavy touched the brow of his helmet.

"...sayonara, sucker."

_Bang_

The head splits open and its ugly matter stains the earth.

….

**Author Notes: So yeah, where should I start? I already mentioned that this chapter is getting way larger than it was originally supposed to be, most of the things I promised last chapter will happen in chapter 9 because of this. Another thing that I must mention is that I have revamped the plot of the coming arcs greatly, since originally Medea was supposed to be captured this chapter by the Magic Sect and turned into a Tousho, but after consulting with my Betas I realized that Medea is someone extremely hard to capture, and more likely to kill herself than be captured, so I revamped the whole plot for the coming arcs, people who are familiar with both rance world and nasuverse will be able to guess what will happen**

**My Betas also said that the beginning was boring and it gets better as it goes on, I don't know, how did you guys feel it was?**

**As you could guess, I'm upping Emiya's power level by giving him some Dragon blood, which is how Saber also got her magic core from Merlin. Now this of course asks the question if Emiya will get a core as well? The answer is no, he will not get a core, just a few extra circuits, the reason for this is because Saber's was done when she was still very young and constantly altered by Merlin, while this is an emergency situation with an adult male, not to mention that this dragons blood is probably a lot less potent than the one Saber got. Yes Emiya will definitely need this as even with this he is still the second weakest piece in this game, and many of the wild cards are easily stronger than him.  
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**Glais: He is an oc I made for several reasons, but the main one was because by inserting him into the work, I can free Merlin and Emiya up for the next arc and participate them in more interesting fights. He is not exactly human and I think I left enough clues to guess what mythical creature he is, of course this is assuming that you are familiar with the Myths surrounding the isles. The second reason is because he is a good starting point to get into the Seelie and Unseelie faerie myths and prepare for some of the arcs related to them that I have planned.**

**Yes another player is making her move, and those who read Umineko know just how efficient and powerful she is, this will also force Yukari to take a more _active_ role for this arc. Another thing that is coming right in the next part of the chapter is the Gilgamesh vs Remilia that I been cockteasing with since chapter 3, and that is what will require most of my attention and work right now as it makes up atleast 10-15k words  
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**One possible complaint that people can have with this fic is that it has too many characters and I'm introducing them too fast.  
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**I agree that this is true to some extent, as it is impossible to not have many characters in a fic of this scale nor it was ever my intention to not have this many, however keep in mind that while I introduce characters chapterly, they might not become relevant until much later chapters, like Suzumi and the Swordsman-girl whose identity I have not revealed yet will only become relevant around chapter 30 or so. So don't worry about having too much characters at one time, most arcs will be centered around a few characters, though I must mention that as the story progresses the retinue of Emiya will only expand, after all I still have a bunch of knights left that I have to add.**

**Speaking of knights, the next possible ones I can add are Gawaiin and Gareth, Gawaiin will appear in the next few chapters, but I'm not sure if I want to have Gareth, I read up on him and he doesn't seem to have any notable abilities like the other knights and seem to mostly be just a kitchen-boy. So I would honestly leave him out of this, but as fanfics are still somewhat interactive I leave it up to the readers, if you guys want me to include Gareth just say it so in the reviews.**

**The second possible complaint towards this fic could be the overuse of regenerative powers.**

**I would say that this is a power overused in most fiction not just in this one particular, and its a really common power, almost everyone that is not a human in nasuverse has it, just look at apostles, servants, half demons and other conceptual beings that inhabit the verse, all of them possess this ability. It is a superpower only among humans and normals. Not to mention that the level of regenerative abilities I have used in this fic are vastly different.**

**-Meia is at master level, almost possesses true immortality and can regenerate herself from a single pool of blood, most damage is pretty much meaningless to her, the only reason she _died_ was because Caliburn and Gae Bolg damaged her very concept. **

**-The chimeras are a step below Meia, but are much more vulnerable to weapons that cause unhealable wounds  
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**-Sword girl is several steps below as she cannot regenerate the nerves and would die if her head was crushed or cut off **

**-Glais is a whole different category since it's not really regeneration, he can only be killed by the mythical weaknesses he has or by conceptual damage **

**Next Chapter will probably come in a month or so.**

**Answer Corner:**

**This will embolden the people instead of doubting his credibility as a Ruler losing Caliburn.**

This is why almost no soldier deserted him during this little rebellion, but as the common people are naive and easy to manipulate, not to mention they didn't see this act, they were tricked into it by the Noble. Nobles still don't like him, since they only care about their own agendas and power, which is why I will knight Saber, Bedivere and Kay in the coming chapters and grant them full noble status. The noble circles will be further replaced when Emiya starts to earn the favour of certain Roman remnants for reasons I will not say yet.

**please choose whether you want to call her Saber or line saber and other arthuria... Make it consistent.**

It's not about consistency, it would look unsightly on paper if a single paragraph contained the word 'Saber' 32 times, switching words with synonyms is a standard practice in writing as far as I'am aware that is used to avoid repetition. And it's not just Saber, I constantly refer to other characters as well by alternate handles, like Emiya, Former Counterguardian, Former Servant, The Red Man, Red Reaper etc.

**Hopefully with commentary from the winning team and a bit of mentions of Excalibur. Seriously, that thing has to show up. The enemies are too hax for it not to.**

Will come up the next part of this chapter, but he will not get it for a while for plot specific reasons, there will be a whole arc dedicated to getting Excalibur that will come right after this one.**  
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**Holy fucking hell you twit. Emiya doesn't have tan skin, he's got brown fucking skin. Emiya's pigmentation literally changed. It's like calling a brown guy a tanned guy. Or a black guy who has tanned skin. wtf? are you retarded or something?**

Sorry for triggering you, I wasn't aware that Emiya was the new Michael Jackson.


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